eviscerate
Americanverb (used with object)
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eviscerates,
present (3rd person singular)
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eviscerated,
past participle, past
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eviscerating
present participle
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to remove the entrails from; disembowel.
to eviscerate a chicken.
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to deprive of vital or essential parts.
The censors eviscerated the book to make it inoffensive to the leaders of the party.
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Surgery. to remove the contents of (a body organ).
verb
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(tr) to remove the internal organs of; disembowel
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(tr) to deprive of meaning or significance
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(tr) surgery to remove the contents of (the eyeball or other organ)
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(intr) surgery (of the viscera) to protrude through a weakened abdominal incision after an operation
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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evisceratesimple
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evisceratessimple
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have evisceratedperfect
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has evisceratedperfect
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am evisceratingprogressive
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are evisceratingprogressive
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is evisceratingprogressive
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have been evisceratingperfect progressive
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has been evisceratingperfect progressive
Past
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evisceratedsimple
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had evisceratedperfect
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was evisceratingprogressive
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were evisceratingprogressive
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had been evisceratingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of eviscerate
First recorded in 1600–10; from Latin ēviscerātus, past participle of ēviscerāre “to deprive of entrails, tear to pieces,” equivalent to ē- e- 1 + viscer(a) viscera + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
Eviscerate is not a pretty word. To eviscerate can mean to remove the entrails of a creature. On the Discovery Channel you can watch a vulture eviscerate or take out the guts of a dead animal. The word eviscerate comes from the Latin eviscerare, meaning "to disembowel." It's not strictly used in such a gruesome sense though. Sure, you can eviscerate a chicken by gutting its insides, but eviscerate can also be used to describe when you deprive something of its most important quality. If you take away the disco ball, it could eviscerate the spirit of your dance party.
Vocabulary lists containing eviscerate
The Things They Carried
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "Beyond Vietnam" (1967)
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"On the Vietnam War, 1967," Vocabulary from the speech
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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:
If something went awry, as things generally did, Jobs would find a scapegoat to eviscerate, preferably in front of everyone else.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 17, 2026
But falling land prices make it hard to borrow money, send loans into default, eviscerate the tax collections that pay for public services, and prompt foreclosures, financial panic, and job loss.
From Slate ● Nov. 4, 2025
Big business has been trying to eviscerate anti-fraud laws for more than a century.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 25, 2024
Melt caves will eviscerate more and more glaciers—creating lakes that could release devastating floods.
From National Geographic ● Jan. 10, 2024
He didn’t know anyone who could eviscerate someone with words quite like Aunt Hila.
From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny
Without a single scene of jungle combat, “Absolution” eviscerates the systems behind the Vietnam War.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 5, 2023
I do not share his withering trans-Atlantic accent, his soigné wardrobe, his social coziness with the people he eviscerates in his column, nor his love for making and destroying reputations overnight.
From New York Times ● Apr. 21, 2020
Pierceson Coody steps in first and tees his ball, then eviscerates a drive that, when it finally lands, bounces and disappears over a ripple in the fairway some 315 yards away.
From Golf Digest ● Dec. 2, 2019
She eviscerates moral philosophers who believe that moral rules can be utterly divorced from biology and find a foundation based on reasoning alone.
From Nature ● May 27, 2019
It falls upon the tiny Crickets, eviscerates them, and devours them with frantic greed.
From Social Life in the Insect World by Bernard Miall
Trillions of dollars were created out of thin air and then eviscerated.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026
Courts have allowed the broad electronic privacy protections in the federal Wiretap Act to be eviscerated by companies claiming consent.
From Salon ● Apr. 23, 2026
The match-winning try scored by Italy utility back Leonardo Marin once again involved a line-break in the 10-metre channel - a microcosm of England's vulnerabilities out wide after being eviscerated there by Scotland and Ireland.
From BBC ● Mar. 13, 2026
And this influencer, with a sharp blond bob and glass skin, is trying on jackets at a small-town Goodwill, where the merchandise has not yet been eviscerated by other consumers completing their own “hauls.”
From Slate ● Jan. 26, 2026
They'll be quoted, parsed, fact-checked, eviscerated by those who disagree, and then forgotten in the wake of new blurbs that come out tomorrow.
From "How It Went Down" by Kekla Magoon
Sarah Paulson’s Daring Characters: The actress has received a Tony nomination for “Appropriate,” in which she portrays a woman who makes a sport out of verbally eviscerating her family members.
From New York Times ● May 19, 2024
“If we can just all agree that we don’t agree, we might make some progress instead of eviscerating each other and canceling each other.”
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 29, 2024
With his athletic prowess and endearing charm, Kaji said, the two-way talent is eviscerating long-held and still lingering stereotypes of Asians and Asian Americans.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 29, 2023
She submitted her resignation letter to the prime minister and published the eviscerating text on Mail Online.
From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2023
Instead of being a volcano “close at hand,” it was Krakatoa eviscerating itself a hundred miles off, and the sound of its last grand effort “extended over 50 degrees, equal to about 3000 miles.”
From Blown to Bits The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
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.
