disconnect
Americanverb (used with object)
-
disconnects,
present (3rd person singular)
-
disconnected,
past participle, past
-
disconnecting
present participle
verb (used without object)
-
disconnects,
present (3rd person singular)
-
disconnected,
past participle, past
-
disconnecting
present participle
-
to sever or terminate a connection, as of a telephone; hang up.
State your business and disconnect.
-
to withdraw into one's private world.
When social pressures become too great, she simply disconnects.
noun
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disconnects
plural
-
an act or instance of disconnecting, especially the suspension of telephone or cable TV service for nonpayment of service charges.
-
a lack of communication or agreement.
There is a huge disconnect between management and employees.
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
disconnectsimple
-
disconnectssimple
-
have disconnectedperfect
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has disconnectedperfect
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am disconnectingprogressive
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are disconnectingprogressive
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is disconnectingprogressive
-
have been disconnectingperfect progressive
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has been disconnectingperfect progressive
Past
-
disconnectedsimple
-
had disconnectedperfect
-
was disconnectingprogressive
-
were disconnectingprogressive
-
had been disconnectingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of disconnect
Explanation
When you disconnect something, you detach or separate it from something else. If you work plowing driveways during the winter, you need to disconnect the plow from your truck in the spring. You can disconnect toy train cars, and you can also disconnect your laptop from its charger. In fact, unplugging electrical appliances is another way to disconnect something. Disconnect also means a lack of understanding or connection. So there might be a disconnect between you and your brother, or between what a politician promises to do and what she actually does. Disconnect combines dis-, "the opposite of" with connect, from the Latin conectere, "join together."
Vocabulary lists containing disconnect
Vocabulary from the Poem “Touchscreen” by Marshall Davis Jones
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Flying Lessons & Other Stories
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Mexican WhiteBoy
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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:
And if there’s one person who has spent more time thinking about that disconnect than almost anyone else, it’s Dave Infante.
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026
But she told me that Gould’s three words come to her when she’s behind in a game, or explaining the disconnect between the company’s results and the market’s perception to employees.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
“When you disconnect the stream from its floodplain and put it into a man-made channel, you lose all that habitat complexity, and you start to lose some of those species.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
This disconnect between managers and staff is something employment lawyer Jodie Hill is familiar with.
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
When I mentioned the disconnect to Farmer, he looked up and said in a chirpy-sounding voice that I was wrong.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
“This space is on fire despite stock price disconnects YTD for basically all of AI semis,” Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes wrote on Friday.
From Barron's ● Mar. 9, 2026
Kill Switch Feature: This automatically disconnects your internet if the VPN connection drops, preventing your data from being exposed accidentally.
From Salon ● Feb. 12, 2026
A dispassionate prompt—one that reminds leaders of what they have agreed to—can make a real difference by highlighting disconnects and asking, “Are you OK with that?”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 1, 2025
But “a switch goes off in a narcissist’s brain that disconnects them emotionally from you.”
From Slate ● Jul. 23, 2025
There were so many cultural disconnects, but my friends accepted me.
From "How Dare the Sun Rise" by Sandra Uwiringiyimana
It’s a song about feeling disconnected from herself and the world during her life as a performer, with an impressionistic arrangement that speeds up, slows down, builds in density and then falls away.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026
“It was the most disconnected from my body I had ever felt,” she said.
From Slate ● Aug. 1, 2026
When this was realised, the automated blue-flag system was disconnected and the FIA relied on marshals showing blue flags or pressing the buttons that operate the blue-light panels trackside.
From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026
Although McCreary says that “Ekleipsis” is not disconnected from that universe, it is not strictly tied to a narrative.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
Although I hadn’t had a seizure since May, the night of the perigee moon—which was now one hundred million miles behind me—I felt disconnected and drained.
From "100 Sideways Miles" by Andrew Smith
"I was bored sometimes, and that's okay," West recalled one recent evening at a city community garden where detox participants met to share their struggles and joys of disconnecting.
From Barron's ● Apr. 22, 2026
But the fear of missing out, or “FOMO,” that comes with disconnecting can be equally daunting, some say.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 21, 2026
Some technology companies are fighting a potential solution: disconnecting the data centers from the grid when electricity is in short supply.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 6, 2026
The “intention-action gap” is massive — 81% of Gen Z says they wish disconnecting were easier, but revealed-preference theory suggests we should only believe what they do, not what they wish.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 17, 2025
Just like Mommy did years before me, I began my own process of running, emotionally disconnecting myself from her, as if by doing so I could keep her suffering from touching me.
From "The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother" by James McBride
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.
