deactivate
Americanverb (used with object)
-
deactivates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
deactivated,
past participle, past
-
deactivating
present participle
-
to cause to be inactive; remove the effectiveness of.
-
to demobilize or disband (a military unit).
-
to render (a bomb, shell, or the like) inoperative, especially by disconnecting, removing, or otherwise interfering with the action of the fuze.
-
Chemistry. to render (a chemical, enzyme, catalyst, etc.) inactive.
verb (used without object)
-
deactivates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
deactivated,
past participle, past
-
deactivating
present participle
verb
-
(tr) to make (a bomb, etc) harmless or inoperative
-
(intr) to become less radioactive
-
(tr) to end the active status of (a military unit)
-
chem to return or cause to return from an activated state to a normal or ground state
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
deactivatesimple
-
deactivatessimple
-
have deactivatedperfect
-
has deactivatedperfect
-
am deactivatingprogressive
-
are deactivatingprogressive
-
is deactivatingprogressive
-
have been deactivatingperfect progressive
-
has been deactivatingperfect progressive
Past
-
deactivatedsimple
-
had deactivatedperfect
-
was deactivatingprogressive
-
were deactivatingprogressive
-
had been deactivatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of deactivate
Vocabulary lists containing deactivate
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:
In mid-March, the University of Florida moved to deactivate the group.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 26, 2026
"A traditional minesweeper which is conducting slow, painstaking work is going to find it tricky to hunt for mines and deactivate them if they are also under air and surface attack," he said.
From BBC ● Mar. 19, 2026
Nearly 50 cities nationwide have opted to deactivate their scanners or cancel contracts with Flock, mostly in recent months, according to the website DeFlock.me, which has set out to map locations of the company’s cameras.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 1, 2026
Earlier work from his group showed that when resveratrol and copper are combined, they generate oxygen radicals that deactivate or destroy cfChPs.
From Science Daily ● Dec. 10, 2025
Then, I'll deactivate the atmospheric regulator, so it doesn't pull water out of the air.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
Meta deactivates accounts that it suspects are underage.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
Similar to the way that HR deactivates an employee's logins when they leave, there needs to be a process for shutting down AI agents that have finished their work, he says.
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2025
This drains the copper pools in the cells and deactivates the biomolecules that require copper.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 20, 2024
It deactivates accounts that could pose a risk to its hosts.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 18, 2023
The activation of a shielding model also deactivates the protection structure of a person or at least some section of it.
From The Brain, A Decoded Enigma by Dorin Teodor Moisa
The Wall Street Journal reported in June that about 50 cities and counties have canceled Flock contracts or deactivated cameras since early last year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
The lawsuit seeks a statewide judgment that Uber has failed to comply with Proposition 22, along with an opportunity for the thousands of deactivated drivers to appeal their terminations.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 21, 2026
Meutya Hafid, the country's communications and digital affairs minister, announced that accounts for under 16s on "high risk" platforms would be deactivated from 28 March.
From BBC ● Mar. 6, 2026
In contrast, mice in which HIF1 was deactivated in tendon tissue did not develop tendon disease, even when their tendons were overloaded.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 12, 2026
They went charging down Park Avenue, and I imagined they would keep looking for flying pigs until someone deactivated them.
From "The Last Olympian" by Rick Riordan
She made her Instagram comeback after seemingly deactivating her personal account earlier this month, when allegations against her husband became public.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 27, 2026
Tech companies said they would comply with the ban, and some began deactivating accounts before the law came into effect.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 10, 2025
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has started deactivating accounts based on information such as the age given when they were created.
From Barron's ● Dec. 1, 2025
Pretty Little Thing faced a backlash when it started deactivating accounts it said had high rates of return last year.
From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2025
“In fact, I’m surprised they’ve kept it going so long. The Capitol will adjust by deactivating specific pods and then manually triggering them when their targets come in range.”
From "Mockingjay" by Suzanne Collins
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.
