disembody

American  

[dis-em-bod-ee] / ˌdɪs ɛmˈbɒd i /

verb (used with object)

disembodied, disembodying

1. to divest (a soul, spirit, etc.) of a body.

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disembody British  

/ ˌdɪsɪmˈbɒdɪ /

verb

1. (tr) to free from the body or from physical form

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Other Word Forms

• disembodiment
  noun

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Etymology

Origin of disembody

First recorded in 1705–15; dis- ¹ + embody

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

disembody disembodied disembodying

Febos said she chose to center the body in the title to help ground her and the book: to dispel the learned impulse to disembody our writing.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 11, 2022

"It's an awakening perhaps, for the children - but unfortunately a stressful one, really deeply stressful, because it's a bodily experience. You can't disembody yourself to escape it."

From BBC ● Jun. 23, 2020

In fact, Gadsby rejuvenates standup by making a moral statement about the self-deprecation that allowed her to disembody her trauma.

From The New Yorker ● Dec. 4, 2018

At a review he publicly insulted the corps he was so long trying to disembody; he either rode past them without noticing them, or made remarks on their appearance the reverse of complimentary.

From Romantic Spain A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. I) by John Augustus O'Shea

Disflesh, dis-flesh′, v.t. to deprive of flesh, to disembody.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 1 of 4: A-D) by Various

Paintings of seated figures almost dissolving into disembodied but anatomically correct drawing, made between about 1941 and 1946, enlarge this story.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026

First comes the warning, that disembodied voice over the tannoy: "Your attention please. Air siren in the city. Please move to the shelter on the minus second floor."

From BBC ● Nov. 16, 2025

In his fall 1971 convocation address at the University of Alberta, McLuhan told students that in an electronic world, people become “discarnate data, a sort of disembodied spirit coexisting and functioning simultaneously in diverse locations.”

From Slate ● Jul. 28, 2025

A startled-looking Macron backed up as disembodied hands smushed his face.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 1, 2025

The crowds packed in, surrounding the seated Texans and reducing them to four disembodied voices.

From "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris

Mika Tajima gives form to the vague sense of unease many people feel in this disembodying digital era.

From New York Times ● Apr. 25, 2024

"It kind of comes to life right in front of your eyes, and especially being able to have satellite footage and that kind of thing, it's really quite, almost a disembodying feeling."

From Reuters ● Jan. 18, 2022

But mist in a moonlight forest is even more disembodying than mist on a moonlight sea.

From The Best Short Stories of 1919 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story by Edward J. (Edward Joseph Harrington) O'Brien

Please understand that there was no talk of discharging me; no talk of demobilising me; no talk even of disembodying me.

From Punch or the London Charivari, Volume 158, March 24, 1920. by Various

So he must find a way of disembodying and of attachment to some force swift as lightning, of which there are plenty in the spaces when the world has ceased to be a world.

From Among the Forces by Henry White Warren

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