dismount
Americanverb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
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to bring or throw down, as from a horse; unhorse; throw.
The horse twisted and bucked and finally dismounted its rider.
-
to remove (a thing) from its mounting, support, setting, etc..
to dismount a picture.
-
to take (a mechanism) to pieces.
noun
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an act or process of dismounting.
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Gymnastics. a move by which a gymnast gets off an apparatus or finishes a floor exercise, usually landing upright on the feet.
verb
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to get off a horse, bicycle, etc
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(tr) to disassemble or remove from a mounting
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of dismount
1525–35; probably modeled on Medieval Latin dismontāre or Middle French desmonter. See dis- 1, mount 1
Explanation
To dismount is to get or climb off of something. An important part of learning to ride a horse is learning how to dismount. When you ride your bike to work, you'll have to dismount and lock it up before you go inside, and when a gymnast dismounts from the balance beam, she does it with a flourish, sometimes cartwheeling off the end — this move itself is called a dismount. Dismount combines the "opposite of" prefix dis- with the verb mount, or "get up on," from its Latin root mons, "mountain."
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.
The drone uses an artificial intelligence program, called Vehicle and Dismount Exploitation Radar, or VaDER, to detect small objects — a human being, a rabbit, even a bird in flight.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 22, 2025
The drone logs record many uses of a surveillance system called VADER, for Vehicle and Dismount Exploitation Radar, to spot individual people and vehicles, though its reliability varied.
From Washington Post • Jan. 15, 2014
Dismount the shopper, free him of driving and parking worries, give him a modern version of the old town square, and the city will be born again.
From Time Magazine Archive
Narayan's imaginary Indian village of Malgudi and Isaac Bashevis Singer's Polish shtetls, Ha Jin's Dismount Fort teems with vivid life and people who grow ever less strange as their struggles unfold.
From Time Magazine Archive
"Dismount, friend, advance, and give the countersign!" cried the sentinel.
From The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 by Stillwell, Leander
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.
