disable
Americanverb (used with object)
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disables,
present (3rd person singular)
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disabled,
past participle, past
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disabling
present participle
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to make unable or unfit; weaken or destroy the capability of; incapacitate.
The detective successfully disabled the bomb.
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to impair or injure (a person or animal) physically or mentally.
The accident disabled him for life.
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to make legally incapable; disqualify.
Minors are legally disabled from entering into a contract.
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Digital Technology. to make (a device, system, or feature) unable to function; turn off.
Some of the car’s advanced safety features can be disabled.
verb
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to make ineffective, unfit, or incapable, as by crippling
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to make or pronounce legally incapable
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to switch off (an electronic device)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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disablesimple
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disablessimple
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have disabledperfect
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has disabledperfect
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am disablingprogressive
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are disablingprogressive
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is disablingprogressive
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have been disablingperfect progressive
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has been disablingperfect progressive
Past
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disabledsimple
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had disabledperfect
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was disablingprogressive
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were disablingprogressive
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had been disablingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of disable
Explanation
When an injury disables someone, it leaves the person seriously hurt, probably for the rest of their life. If a car accident disables you, you are permanently limited in some physical way. Illness, as well as injury, can disable people: for example, diabetes disables some sufferers by leaving them blind or weakening their hearts. A completely different way to disable is to make something unusable or unable to work in a certain way. if you disable your smoke detector while you cook nachos in your smoky oven, it won't work until you reconnect the batteries.
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:
Anthropic was temporarily forced to disable access to its latest models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, last month after the U.S. government flagged them as a security threat.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 16, 2026
Talent agencies, union officials and others in Hollywood also criticized the new AI feature, putting pressure on Meta to disable it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2026
The government ordered Telegram to disable the editing function in India until June 30.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 20, 2026
Regardless of whether it does end up being banned for under-16s, Roblox will still need to abide by requirements for all platforms to disable features that let strangers communicate with children, announced alongside the ban.
From BBC ● Jun. 16, 2026
Above me I can hear furious voices coming from the third-floor window as the soldiers realize they're going to have to double back into the laboratory to disable the alarm.
From "Legend" by Marie Lu
The virus that sparked a global pandemic still regularly infects, disables and kills hundreds of people per week.
From Salon ● Aug. 6, 2026
A "dark" vessel -- usually a tanker or cargo carrier -- deliberately disables or manipulates transponders in a bid to go undetected by public tracking systems like Kpler's MarineTraffic.
From Barron's ● Mar. 31, 2026
If the lane striping isn’t perfect, though, the lane-keeping assist sometimes disables itself, so I don’t rely on it completely.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 20, 2025
Technology is a shape or a form that enables certain things and disables others, and there’s room to navigate, but there are also constraints.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 9, 2025
Several of the drones hover too close to the gates—when they try to cross over, they hit an invisible shield that disables them, sending them clattering to the ground.
From "Warcross" by Marie Lu
Medicaid cannot recover certain assets from a deceased beneficiary’s estate if the beneficiary is survived by a child under 21, or a blind or disabled child of any age.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 13, 2026
If you remarried after age 60 — or after the age 50 if you are disabled — as long as you were married for 10 years, you could claim survivor benefits.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 12, 2026
Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, had redirected 55 commercial ships, disabled two and boarded two to enforce the blockade.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026
Her research found that official heatwave guidance often does not reflect disabled people's circumstances, while measures presented as simple can in fact create new barriers.
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2026
That was for people who couldn’t work anymore because they were too sick or, well, disabled.
From "Found" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
“When people have access to medical care through insurance, they tend to undertake activities that can help longevity, like better preventive care, better management of chronic and disabling conditions,” Cohen said.
From Salon ● Aug. 11, 2026
"You've got inequalities in urban infrastructure, housing, structural conditions around things like social networks and care. If you put all of those together and then you throw heat in, that's what's disabling," Kirkcaldy said.
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2026
Options for changing the platforms’ design could include disabling features such as default autoplay and infinite scrolling or creating screen time breaks for users, it said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
"Our current plan is, with the help of parliament, get the Digital Fairness Act amended to include the issue of prohibiting publishers from deliberately disabling customer purchases," they said.
From Barron's ● Jun. 16, 2026
Terryl remembers that Danny, to make sure church wasn’t an option, would sometimes take the distributor cap off of Kathie’s long, chocolate brown Cadillac, disabling the aging sedan.
From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel
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.
