eviscerate
Americanverb (used with object)
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eviscerates,
present (3rd person singular)
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eviscerated,
past participle, past
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eviscerating
present participle
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to remove the entrails from; disembowel.
to eviscerate a chicken.
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to deprive of vital or essential parts.
The censors eviscerated the book to make it inoffensive to the leaders of the party.
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Surgery. to remove the contents of (a body organ).
verb
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(tr) to remove the internal organs of; disembowel
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(tr) to deprive of meaning or significance
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(tr) surgery to remove the contents of (the eyeball or other organ)
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(intr) surgery (of the viscera) to protrude through a weakened abdominal incision after an operation
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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evisceratesimple
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evisceratessimple
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have evisceratedperfect
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has evisceratedperfect
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am evisceratingprogressive
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are evisceratingprogressive
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is evisceratingprogressive
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have been evisceratingperfect progressive
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has been evisceratingperfect progressive
Past
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evisceratedsimple
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had evisceratedperfect
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was evisceratingprogressive
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were evisceratingprogressive
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had been evisceratingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of eviscerate
First recorded in 1600–10; from Latin ēviscerātus, past participle of ēviscerāre “to deprive of entrails, tear to pieces,” equivalent to ē- e- 1 + viscer(a) viscera + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
Eviscerate is not a pretty word. To eviscerate can mean to remove the entrails of a creature. On the Discovery Channel you can watch a vulture eviscerate or take out the guts of a dead animal. The word eviscerate comes from the Latin eviscerare, meaning "to disembowel." It's not strictly used in such a gruesome sense though. Sure, you can eviscerate a chicken by gutting its insides, but eviscerate can also be used to describe when you deprive something of its most important quality. If you take away the disco ball, it could eviscerate the spirit of your dance party.
Vocabulary lists containing eviscerate
The Things They Carried
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "Beyond Vietnam" (1967)
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"On the Vietnam War, 1967," Vocabulary from the speech
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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:
If something went awry, as things generally did, Jobs would find a scapegoat to eviscerate, preferably in front of everyone else.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 17, 2026
But falling land prices make it hard to borrow money, send loans into default, eviscerate the tax collections that pay for public services, and prompt foreclosures, financial panic, and job loss.
From Slate ● Nov. 4, 2025
Among the ironies: He got nothing of value on the cellphone that so enraged the sheriff, and prosecutors never called him to testify at trial, knowing the defense was likely to eviscerate him.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2025
Corker noted the NCAA’s contention that allowing so-called NIL collectives to offer deals to recruits would eviscerate the difference between college athletics and professional sports.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 23, 2024
He was able to eviscerate opponents with his eloquence and intellect.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
Without a single scene of jungle combat, “Absolution” eviscerates the systems behind the Vietnam War.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 5, 2023
Good luck trying to look away while she eviscerates the institution.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 18, 2021
I do not share his withering trans-Atlantic accent, his soigné wardrobe, his social coziness with the people he eviscerates in his column, nor his love for making and destroying reputations overnight.
From New York Times ● Apr. 21, 2020
Pierceson Coody steps in first and tees his ball, then eviscerates a drive that, when it finally lands, bounces and disappears over a ripple in the fairway some 315 yards away.
From Golf Digest ● Dec. 2, 2019
It falls upon the tiny Crickets, eviscerates them, and devours them with frantic greed.
From Social Life in the Insect World by Bernard Miall
He continued: "With its traditional covert footprint eviscerated by almost 1,000 expulsions since the invasion, the Kremlin's global toolkit is weak. So we see them scrambling to pay criminals to do their bidding."
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026
The already precarious labor market is being eviscerated by further automation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 26, 2026
Courts have allowed the broad electronic privacy protections in the federal Wiretap Act to be eviscerated by companies claiming consent.
From Salon ● Apr. 23, 2026
And this influencer, with a sharp blond bob and glass skin, is trying on jackets at a small-town Goodwill, where the merchandise has not yet been eviscerated by other consumers completing their own “hauls.”
From Slate ● Jan. 26, 2026
They'll be quoted, parsed, fact-checked, eviscerated by those who disagree, and then forgotten in the wake of new blurbs that come out tomorrow.
From "How It Went Down" by Kekla Magoon
Season 2 follows many of the same formulas, replete with eviscerating comebacks from Daddy’s Little Viper.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2025
She wrote her debut album in the midst of chaos, pouring all of those experiences into 15 gritty, eviscerating songs that swerve between rock, emo, pop, screamo and nu metal.
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2024
“If we can just all agree that we don’t agree, we might make some progress instead of eviscerating each other and canceling each other.”
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 29, 2024
But in an opinion on Tuesday eviscerating his assertion, three federal appeals court judges portrayed his position as not only wrong on the law but also repellent.
From New York Times ● Feb. 6, 2024
Though his superior in sheer strength, she was much smaller and lighter than he, and less murderously armed for combat; and she dreaded the raking, eviscerating clutch of his terrible hinder claws.
From The House in the Water A Book of Animal Stories by Charles Livingston Bull
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
