disintegrate
Americanverb (used without object)
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disintegrates,
present (3rd person singular)
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disintegrated,
past participle, past
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disintegrating
present participle
-
to separate into parts or lose intactness or solidness; break up; deteriorate.
The old book is gradually disintegrating with age.
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Physics.
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to decay.
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(of a nucleus) to change into one or more different nuclei after being bombarded by high-energy particles, as alpha particles or gamma rays.
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verb (used with object)
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disintegrates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
disintegrated,
past participle, past
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disintegrating
present participle
verb
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to break or be broken into fragments or constituent parts; shatter
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to lose or cause to lose cohesion or unity
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(intr) to lose judgment or control; deteriorate
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physics
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to induce or undergo nuclear fission, as by bombardment with fast particles
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another word for decay
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Synonym Usage
See decay.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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disintegrationnoun
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disintegratornoun
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disintegrableadjective
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disintegrativeadjective
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disintegratoryadjective
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nondisintegratingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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disintegratesimple
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disintegratessimple
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have disintegratedperfect
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has disintegratedperfect
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am disintegratingprogressive
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are disintegratingprogressive
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is disintegratingprogressive
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have been disintegratingperfect progressive
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has been disintegratingperfect progressive
Past
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disintegratedsimple
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had disintegratedperfect
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was disintegratingprogressive
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were disintegratingprogressive
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had been disintegratingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of disintegrate
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.
Vocabulary lists containing disintegrate
The Lightning Thief
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Fahrenheit 451
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Farewell to Manzanar
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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:
When a brooding Pitt admits he’s had trouble with “family stuff,” the writer lets the sentiment disintegrate.
From Salon ● Aug. 11, 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
Before it began to disintegrate, K1 was likely slightly larger than a typical comet, measuring about 5 miles across.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 21, 2026
The top ridge began to fall over and disintegrate into churning confusion.
From "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy" by Gary D. Schmidt
But if data disintegrates, he said, he would vote in favor of a cut.
From Barron's ● Feb. 23, 2026
In humans, the dental lamina disintegrates after we grow our adult teeth, but many vertebrates retain the ability to replace their teeth.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 16, 2025
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
“You can see obviously it fails in flight, it spins out and disintegrates, and the impacts on the ground follow that,” said Crump, CEO of Skyline, a London-based strategic advisory firm.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 20, 2023
When you kill a monster in Final Fantasy, it makes a sound like a groan and disintegrates into sand.
From "Everything Sad Is Untrue" by Daniel Nayeri
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
Then in a matter of weeks in 2011, Sokol’s prospects disintegrated after a controversy related to his personal stock trades.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 25, 2026
Panther Lake also represents a step forward for a company whose manufacturing footprint disintegrated over the last decade.
From Barron's ● Jan. 20, 2026
At once, the whole moth, already years dead, disintegrated, collapsing into a soft, formless heap of dark dust.
From "I'm the King of the Castle" by Susan Hill
They stored the item in water to keep it from disintegrating, marked down exactly where in the shipwreck it was found and placed it in a locked case.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 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
"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
Structures made out of bed sheets and clothing—assembled by displaced Palestinians who haven’t received a proper tent—are disintegrating in the heavy rains and winds, leaving many out in the cold.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 13, 2025
Another reason to stay alert was that, instead of a disintegrating relationship, an inmate might have an extra one.
From "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing" by Ted Conover
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.
