mutilate
Americanverb (used with object)
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mutilates,
present (3rd person singular)
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mutilated,
past participle, past
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mutilating
present participle
verb
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to deprive of a limb, essential part, etc; maim; dismember
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to mar, expurgate, or damage (a text, book, etc)
Synonym Usage
See maim.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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mutilationnoun
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mutilatornoun
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self-mutilationnoun
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mutilativeadjective
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mutilatoryadjective
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self-mutilatingadjective
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unmutilatedadjective
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unmutilativeadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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mutilatesimple
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mutilatessimple
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have mutilatedperfect
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has mutilatedperfect
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am mutilatingprogressive
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are mutilatingprogressive
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is mutilatingprogressive
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have been mutilatingperfect progressive
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has been mutilatingperfect progressive
Past
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mutilatedsimple
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had mutilatedperfect
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was mutilatingprogressive
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were mutilatingprogressive
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had been mutilatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of mutilate
1525–35; from Latin mutilātus (past participle of mutilāre “to cut off, maim”), equivalent to mutil(us) “maimed, mutilated” + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
Mutilate is a verb that means to injure or ruin, usually in a brutal or messy way. If you drop a cantaloupe into a wood chipper, you'll mutilate that poor melon, with chunks of fruit and rind flying everywhere. Mutilate can also mean altering an object so it's unrecognizable. Once you mutilate something, it'll no longer resemble its original form. Celebrities who get too much plastic surgery are said to mutilate their faces, because they no longer look like themselves. Mutilate can also describe causing a disfiguring injury. Monsters and evil villains in horror movies tend to mutilate their victims instead of neatly murdering them.
Vocabulary lists containing mutilate
"The Hunger Games" Vocabulary from Chapter 6
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Fallen Angels
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The Color of My Words
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“The DGA strongly opposes the use of AI or any other technology to mutilate a film or to alter a director’s vision,” the DGA said in a statement.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2025
“We have concluded on the basis of present evidence that Nosenko was dispatched to the West to mutilate counterintelligence leads which had been revealed by Golitsyn,” Angleton said.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 1, 2023
"They've actually forced the cane toad to get rid of the toxin itself, they haven't had to mutilate it in any way. The cane toad is doing all the work for them."
From BBC ● Nov. 24, 2022
State law is clear: It is a felony offense for anyone to “willfully and unlawfully remove, alter, mutilate, destroy, conceal or obliterate” a public record.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 18, 2022
I don’t know, I guess I always thought I’d turn out okay, no matter how badly my many schools tried to mutilate me.
From "A Very Large Expanse of Sea" by Tahereh Mafi
The law punishes “whoever corruptly alters, destroys, mutilates or conceals a record, document or other object … or otherwise obstructs, influences or impedes any official proceeding.”
From Washington Post ● Dec. 12, 2022
There was no camaraderie because this system mutilates your emotions - you feel nothing.
From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2017
Especially if the Common App mutilates the formatting on applicant essays and you say there’s no way to fix it.
From Slate ● Nov. 25, 2013
If it mutilates the magazine, the kids will buy a second as a collectible.”
From New York Times ● Oct. 1, 2010
It can draw up manifest examples of miserable intentions and conduct of life, through whose imitation a people voluntarily mutilates itself or commits suicide.
From The Malady of the Century by Max Simon Nordau
Mr. Hemming writes that upon Miller’s death, doctors found 23 battle scars, a large wound on his right abdominal cartilage, two rifle balls lodged in his liver, and mutilated fingers on his left hand.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026
Our glamorous and gruesome history is all there in a close-up of “Chinatown’s” Jack Nicholson: a movie star with a mutilated nose.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 15, 2026
They can cause dangerous diseases like Cryptococcus neoformans and Candida auris among our own kind, massacre beloved fellow animals like frogs and bats and even turn less-charismatic animals like cicadas into horrifyingly mutilated zombies.
From Salon ● Oct. 18, 2024
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson has urged the government against building a "mutilated" version of HS2.
From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2023
He did not want to think of the mutilated under-side of the fish.
From "The Old Man and The Sea" by Ernest Hemingway
Many mutilating and distressing skin disorders such as skin cancers and deep fungal infections were also confused with leprosy by the general public.
From Salon ● Mar. 21, 2024
Former prime minister Boris Johnson has warned, however, against "mutilating" the project in a letter to Rishi Sunak.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2023
I’ve heard countless stories from friends of the anxiety that comes from mutilating a piece of clothing, hoping that the finished product doesn’t look atrocious.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2023
Both testicles were eventually removed – he called it “the mutilating surgery”.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 9, 2020
Four of the men went to prison for six months for knowingly destroying or mutilating their cards.
From "Boots on the Ground: America's War in Vietnam" by Elizabeth Partridge
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
