disaffiliate
Americanverb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of disaffiliate
Explanation
To disaffiliate is to break off a connection with a person, group, or organization. If your book club has become nothing but a monthly gossip session, with no discussion of books at all, you might decide to disaffiliate from it. Disaffiliate combines dis-, "the opposite of," with affiliate, "bring into close association," from the Latin affiliare, "to adopt a son." When someone separates themselves from some close association, they disaffiliate from it. If you no longer want to be affiliated with a group of friends, you can decide to disaffiliate. And when a church has a disagreement with its denomination, it can also disaffiliate, becoming an independent, separate.
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:
Most of its bishops favor staying, but other voices are calling for regional conferences to disaffiliate.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 13, 2024
A chart from the church’s UM News service shows a total of 4,359 congregations have been approved to disaffiliate, approximately 14% of the denomination’s 30,543 U.S. congregations reported in 2019.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 5, 2023
Last month, 38 churches in the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church sued in the state’s Superior Court, demanding they be allowed to disaffiliate from the denomination.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 8, 2022
“This church was brought to the attention of the committee. The committee inquired of the church about their desire to disaffiliate and received no response.”
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 27, 2022
“However, we have long understood that organizations choose to disaffiliate from universities for a variety of legitimate reasons, because in some cases Panhellenic organizations have done so as well.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2022
Regular Catholic Mass attendance is reportedly near 6%, and hundreds of thousands have formally disaffiliated from the church in recent years.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 4, 2025
The BBC has seen documents that show the Green Party disaffiliated the GPW for failing to run its planned Autumn 2021 committee election until January 2022.
From BBC ● Dec. 9, 2023
The Louisville, Kentucky-based denomination said Monday 108 churches disaffiliated, dropping the number of congregations to 8,704, a shedding of 747 churches since 2016.
From Washington Times ● May 3, 2023
In the Florida conference, 14 churches have formally disaffiliated, six are in process of doing so and another six are voting on whether to leave this month.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 8, 2022
SPU could be one, she said, even if it disaffiliated from the Free Methodist Church.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 30, 2022
One outcome is that many people are disaffiliating from their churches, their belief systems, and their communities.
From Salon ● Sep. 30, 2024
Many churches began disaffiliating under a temporary measure approved in 2019 that let churches keep their properties under favorable conditions.
From Seattle Times ● May 5, 2024
Those crises set off a domino of CrossFit gyms’ disaffiliating from the brand—and the company, under new leadership and ownership, now faces the challenge of charting its future.
From Slate ● Feb. 11, 2023
“I want to say unequivocally that no, we are not disaffiliating to dodge these social event policies that were put into place,” said Murphy, a senior majoring in political science and history.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2022
The reasons that more young Americans are disaffiliating in the world’s most religious developed country are varied.
From New York Times ● Aug. 26, 2021
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.
