disarticulate

American  

[dis-ahr-tik-yuh-leyt] / ˌdɪs ɑrˈtɪk jəˌleɪt /

verb (used with or without object)

disarticulated, disarticulating

1. to make or become disjointed, as the bones of a body or stems of a plant.

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disarticulate British  

/ ˌdɪsɑːˈtɪkjʊˌleɪt /

verb

1. to separate or cause to separate at the joints, esp those of bones

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Other Word Forms

• disarticulation
  noun
• disarticulator
  noun

Etymology

Origin of disarticulate

First recorded in 1820–30; dis- ¹ + articulate

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

disarticulate disarticulated disarticulating

Attention! isn't trying to disarticulate the whole idea of ordered writing.

From The Guardian ● Jun. 21, 2013

Tendrils which have caught nothing soon shrink and wither; but in some species of Bignonia they disarticulate and fall off like leaves in autumn.

From The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants by Darwin, Charles

I was next awakened by the sudden and persistent thought that I must have a flag, and accordingly set to work to disarticulate the frozen legs of my dead dogs.

From A Labrador Doctor The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell by Grenfell, Wilfred Thomason, Sir

Retaining Mr. Syme's incisions in their integrity, some operators prefer not to disarticulate the foot, but remove it by sawing through the tibia and fibula at once, while still in connection with the foot.

From A Manual of the Operations of Surgery For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners by Bell, Joseph

To a man in my disarticulate situation people don't write except to express the kindness of their hearts.

From Mary Wollaston by Webster, Henry Kitchell

Nearby, Haile-Selassie later found the lower jaw, teeth, and disarticulated bones of the hands, feet, and arm of Ardipithecus kadabba, dated to 5.8 million years ago.

From Science Magazine ● Apr. 3, 2024

The hands, along with numerous disarticulated fingers, were most likely buried during Egypt’s 15th dynasty, from 1640 B.C. to 1530 B.C.

From New York Times ● May 16, 2023

Westernness is a thorny subject and I don’t want to get into too deeply here precisely because it has become vague, a disarticulated and somewhat embarrassing category.

From Slate ● Mar. 4, 2022

Archaeologists found disarticulated skeletal remains from three to four men, 10 to 12 women and at least two children in the tomb.

From Scientific American ● Apr. 1, 2014

Cuvier was already dazzling people with his genius for taking heaps of disarticulated bones and whipping them into shapely forms.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

If he didn’t do the film, somebody else would eventually, disarticulating it with the sort of hyperbole he hated and which he made such an effort to avoid in his own accounts.

From Golf Digest ● Mar. 23, 2020

Regarding the method of disarticulating at the astragalo-calcaneal joint, and removing all the foot except the astragalus, no detail need be given.

From A Manual of the Operations of Surgery For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners by Bell, Joseph

Spikelets are unilateral, sessile, crowded, biseriate on a slender rachis with four to six glumes and 1 to 3-flowered; the rachilla is produced and disarticulating above the empty glumes.

From A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses by Rangachari, K.