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:
During the same session, Mary Kish, head of community at Twitch, took viewers through a tutorial on how to disable generative AI training through a user's channel settings.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026
Anthropic’s Fable model was brought under export control by the government, forcing the company to disable access to all its users, before it was re-released with extra safeguards.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 1, 2026
Then they disable alarms and reconfigure dashboards in search of low-tech bliss.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026
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
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
It disables specific growth enzymes in grass weeds, while the same enzymes in crops like soybeans remain unaffected.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 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
But if a student disables Opal to use a banned app, school officials are notified on an office dashboard.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 31, 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
We are here because one spring day in May, Joshua Fox, a 31-year-old Black disabled veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder and a checkered past, stood up and stress-tested Eatherly’s business model.
From Slate ● Aug. 20, 2026
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said it was "simply not right that many disabled people cannot travel using their pass during certain times of the day".
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
The alleged shooter's Facebook account has since been disabled.
From Barron's ● Aug. 18, 2026
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
I’m sure there were a few club members still dubious about a skinny disabled kid playing, but the first bowl I sent down that day gently nudged the jack.
From "Ugly" by Robert Hoge
“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
Instagram, which is owned by Meta, has been disabling accounts and taking down some of these pickup or prank videos for violating the platform’s rules against harassment and bullying.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026
On social media, people have complained about being filmed without their knowledge, with accounts surfacing of users disabling the white light that signals the glasses are recording.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
“You’re not the first person in the world to have to deal with a disabling accident!”
From "The Adoration of Jenna Fox" by Mary E. Pearson
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.
