disinter
Americanverb (used with object)
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disinters,
present (3rd person singular)
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disinterred,
past participle, past
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disinterring
present participle
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to take out of the place of interment; exhume; unearth.
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to bring from obscurity into view.
The actor's autobiography disinterred a past era.
verb
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to remove or dig up; exhume
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to bring (a secret, hidden facts, etc) to light; expose
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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disintersimple
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disinterssimple
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have disinterredperfect
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has disinterredperfect
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am disinterringprogressive
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are disinterringprogressive
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is disinterringprogressive
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have been disinterringperfect progressive
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has been disinterringperfect progressive
Past
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disinterredsimple
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had disinterredperfect
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was disinterringprogressive
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were disinterringprogressive
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had been disinterringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of disinter
Explanation
To "inter" a body is to bury it or place it in a mausoleum, so to disinter someone is to take the body out again — usually to find out how they died, to make sure it's really who we think it is, or to move the body to a new burial site. You might think you got away with murder, but once they disinter the body, the medical examiners will find out that the guy was a victim of your evil plot. A vampire sleeps all day in his own coffin and then disinters himself at night to go in search of blood. One way to remember the meaning of disinter is to think of "dis-entering" a body. When someone dies, their body is "entered" into the grave. If the body is removed, it's being "dis-entered," in a sense. But disinter is spelled — and pronounced — differently (diss-in-TUR), of course.
Vocabulary lists containing disinter
Animal Farm
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "D"
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The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
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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:
Ingrid Rojas Contreras goes on to explore her family’s history as curanderos — South American shamans like her grandfather, whose bones the family decides to disinter in accordance with his spectral request.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2022
To fully identify graves, remains, and identities, researchers must also gather records, collect oral histories, and possibly disinter bodies — and it's not clear yet if communities will want to take the final painful step.
From Salon ● Apr. 13, 2022
Banaji also said the agency doesn't plan to disinter the remains and try to identify them because it lacks sufficient documentation.
From Fox News ● Aug. 2, 2021
Banaji also said the agency doesn’t plan to disinter the remains and try to identify them because it lacks sufficient documentation.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 1, 2021
As though he could disinter it by force.
From "The Serpent King" by Jeff Zentner
Back at Sayyida Nafisa cemetery, Iman remains distraught as she disinters her relatives.
From BBC ● May 26, 2023
What is also apparent is that Glam! disinters a past that has never been buried.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 6, 2013
Snapped Connor: "Now Mr. Waugh, in the role of an eager exhumer, disinters the corpse and with busy spade and blazing arclights, goes smartly to work in the graveyard of the past."
From Time Magazine Archive
What kind of ideological ghoul disinters the dead and uses them for purposes they did not believe in while they lived?
From Time Magazine Archive
The old lady disinters her ancient finery; the girl, by hook or crook, is determined to dress in the fashion.
From Hodge and His Masters by Richard Jefferies
Some reports claimed remains housed there had been disinterred.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 17, 2025
The Army has disinterred 32 remains of Native American children and returned them to their families and tribes at the Army’s expense since 2017, the OAC spokesperson said.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 1, 2024
Several graves were being disinterred during my visit.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2023
The leader of the Falange was disinterred in a private ceremony in presence of his family, away from public scrutiny.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 24, 2023
The skull of old Major, now clean of flesh, had been disinterred from the orchard and set up on a stump at the foot of the flagstaff, beside the gun.
From "Animal Farm: A Fairy Story" by George Orwell
Another is a pungent work of terror about a cursed man who inexplicably perishes in the village’s crypt, forcing the townspeople to investigate by disinterring the bodies.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
Protocols for disinterring, sampling and reburying human remains were established in consultation with local religious leaders and community stakeholders.
From New York Times ● Mar. 29, 2023
The Army is disinterring the remains of eight Native American children who died at the government-run Carlisle Indian Industrial School, and plans to transfer custody to the children’s closest living relatives.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 21, 2022
The celebration is believed to have its roots in the Uru Chipaya custom of disinterring the bodies of loved ones at the one-year anniversary of their death.
From Reuters ● Nov. 9, 2021
In the years between the First World War and the disinterring of Luigi Boccherini’s bones, music’s family had expanded prolifically.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
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.
