Synonyms

disintegrate

American

[dis-in-tuh-grayt] / dɪsˈɪn təˌgreɪt /

verb (used without object)

to separate into parts or lose intactness or solidness; break up; deteriorate.

The old book is gradually disintegrating with age.
Physics.
1. to decay.
2. (of a nucleus) to change into one or more different nuclei after being bombarded by high-energy particles, as alpha particles or gamma rays.

verb (used with object)

to reduce to particles, fragments, or parts; break up or destroy the cohesion of.

Rocks are disintegrated by frost and rain.

disintegrate British

/ dɪsˈɪntɪˌɡreɪt /

verb

to break or be broken into fragments or constituent parts; shatter
to lose or cause to lose cohesion or unity
(intr) to lose judgment or control; deteriorate
physics
1. to induce or undergo nuclear fission, as by bombardment with fast particles
2. another word for decay

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Synonym Usage

See decay.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Participles

Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

Future

Etymology

Origin of disintegrate

First recorded in 1790–1800; dis- ¹ + integrate

Explanation

Soak your tooth in a cup of soda for long enough and it will disintegrate, or break apart from decay. The word disintegrate comes from a combination of the prefix dis- meaning "do the opposite of" and the Latin integrare meaning "to make whole." When something disintegrates, it does the opposite of become whole; it falls apart. Objects can either disintegrate over time — like a tooth soaking in a cup of soda, or instantaneously — like a building disintegrating into dust from an explosion.

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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:

disintegrate disintegrates disintegrated disintegrating

The Swift space telescope, which studies the most powerful explosions in the universe, will now likely plunge back to earth and disintegrate along the way later this year.

From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026

“Only last month U.S. authorities said that it was illegal for countries to charge tolls on international waterways, so this threat may disintegrate when it hits reality,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 13, 2026

They disintegrate, scattering their molecules to the stratospheric winds.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026

Language is malleable, but it has to retain some meaning, or the boundaries of our society will disintegrate more than they already have.

From Salon ● May 10, 2026

Old comets, heated by repeated passages near the Sun, break up, evaporate and disintegrate.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

However, the US Geological Survey then clarified that the disaster was caused by a "glacial collapse", which is when a glacier or part of a glacier disintegrates.

From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026

But if data disintegrates, he said, he would vote in favor of a cut.

From Barron's ● Feb. 23, 2026

He adds that if we sacrifice that commitment for A.I., “you’d get to a point pretty fast where it just disintegrates and becomes the ugliest definition of the word product.”

From Slate ● Aug. 14, 2024

When a low-voltage electrical stimulus is applied through the patch, the gold coating disintegrates, exposing the drug-loaded microneedles to the skin and initiating the controlled release of the drugs.

From Science Daily ● Jan. 18, 2024

I need only to think of Prim and all my resolve disintegrates.

From "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins

Every robot that faceplanted, lost a limb, or disintegrated in a spray of sparks was borne away on a stretcher by human attendants with deadpan solicitude.

From Slate ● Sep. 27, 2026

Things have disintegrated since, hastened by the predictable filleting of goods and services to extrude every last cent of value.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026

Given how fragile it was, it may simply have disintegrated on the shelf and been overlooked or thrown away.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 7, 2026

He poked at the steps on a back stairway and the water-damaged tiles disintegrated like soggy saltines.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2026

Teapots lay smashed, gnomes were trampled flat, chairs had disintegrated into splinters.

From "The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm" by Nancy Farmer

At some point disintegrating cohesion produces costs—social, economic and political—that undermine the benefits of the inequality and erode support for the system itself.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026

That changed in April 2023 when unknowing construction workers unceremoniously removed a disintegrating Pinky from its eyrie.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026

The theater vanished into the green wormhole, disintegrating into a snow globe with the theater inside.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2026

"You know your health is disintegrating in front of you and there's absolutely nothing you can do to stop it, apart from being told to just take the contraceptive pill so you don't have periods."

From BBC ● Mar. 2, 2026

Faith, still disintegrating behind the wheel of the Sunbird parked alongside the curb, managed to give me a wet, worried look that pushed me out of the car.

From "Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet" by Joanne Proulx

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023