dispose of

Idioms  

1. Attend to, settle, deal with, as in He quickly disposed of the problem . [Early 1600s]

2. Transfer, part with, as by giving away or selling. For example, They wanted to dispose of the land as soon as possible . [Second half of 1600s]

3. Get rid of, throw out, as in Can we dispose of the trash in this barrel? Oliver Goldsmith had this idiom in She Stoops to Conquer (1773): “I'm disposing of the husband before I have secured the lover.” [Mid-1600s]

4. Kill or destroy; also, humorously, consume. For example, The king was determined to dispose of his enemies , or John disposed of the cake in no time . [Second half of 1800s]

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

dispose of

They proved you could destroy a problematic protein by bringing a smooth protein closer to an enzyme that helps dispose of cell waste—without needing to latch on to the protein like traditional drugs do.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026

Collectibles, Novack noted, are hard to dispose of, too.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 8, 2026

But it also has a large residential population, who have become increasingly exasperated with tourists who fail to properly dispose of rubbish, smoke where they're not supposed to, and make too much noise.

From Barron's ● Sep. 7, 2026

The researchers found that tissue-resident macrophages, a type of immune cell that lives permanently within organs, become less able with age to dispose of another class of immune cells.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 3, 2026

And there were still two banged-up bronze bulls to dispose of, which I didn’t figure would fit in our normal recycling bins.

From "The Sea of Monsters" by Rick Riordan

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Related Words

• destroy
• discard
• dump
• eliminate
• get rid of
• relinquish
• scrap
• sell
• unload

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