mutilate
Americanverb (used with object)
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mutilates,
present (3rd person singular)
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mutilated,
past participle, past
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mutilating
present participle
verb
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to deprive of a limb, essential part, etc; maim; dismember
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to mar, expurgate, or damage (a text, book, etc)
Synonym Usage
See maim.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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mutilationnoun
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mutilatornoun
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self-mutilationnoun
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mutilativeadjective
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mutilatoryadjective
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self-mutilatingadjective
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unmutilatedadjective
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unmutilativeadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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mutilatesimple
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mutilatessimple
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have mutilatedperfect
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has mutilatedperfect
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am mutilatingprogressive
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are mutilatingprogressive
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is mutilatingprogressive
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have been mutilatingperfect progressive
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has been mutilatingperfect progressive
Past
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mutilatedsimple
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had mutilatedperfect
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was mutilatingprogressive
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were mutilatingprogressive
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had been mutilatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of mutilate
1525–35; from Latin mutilātus (past participle of mutilāre “to cut off, maim”), equivalent to mutil(us) “maimed, mutilated” + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
Mutilate is a verb that means to injure or ruin, usually in a brutal or messy way. If you drop a cantaloupe into a wood chipper, you'll mutilate that poor melon, with chunks of fruit and rind flying everywhere. Mutilate can also mean altering an object so it's unrecognizable. Once you mutilate something, it'll no longer resemble its original form. Celebrities who get too much plastic surgery are said to mutilate their faces, because they no longer look like themselves. Mutilate can also describe causing a disfiguring injury. Monsters and evil villains in horror movies tend to mutilate their victims instead of neatly murdering them.
Vocabulary lists containing mutilate
"The Hunger Games" Vocabulary from Chapter 6
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Fallen Angels
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The Color of My Words
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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:
But animal welfare charities worry that any carve-outs would be exploited by smugglers to continue trading, and would see those who illegally mutilate dogs in the UK avoid prosecution.
From BBC ● Dec. 6, 2025
Prosecutors accuse the former president of trying to “alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal evidence,” and of inducing another person to do so.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 28, 2023
“We have concluded on the basis of present evidence that Nosenko was dispatched to the West to mutilate counterintelligence leads which had been revealed by Golitsyn,” Angleton said.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 1, 2023
There's times where you don't have to dissect a joke or mutilate a joke or ruin the joke in order to make it clear.
From Salon ● Jun. 18, 2022
I don’t know, I guess I always thought I’d turn out okay, no matter how badly my many schools tried to mutilate me.
From "A Very Large Expanse of Sea" by Tahereh Mafi
The law punishes “whoever corruptly alters, destroys, mutilates or conceals a record, document or other object … or otherwise obstructs, influences or impedes any official proceeding.”
From Washington Post ● Dec. 12, 2022
There was no camaraderie because this system mutilates your emotions - you feel nothing.
From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2017
Especially if the Common App mutilates the formatting on applicant essays and you say there’s no way to fix it.
From Slate ● Nov. 25, 2013
If it mutilates the magazine, the kids will buy a second as a collectible.”
From New York Times ● Oct. 1, 2010
It can draw up manifest examples of miserable intentions and conduct of life, through whose imitation a people voluntarily mutilates itself or commits suicide.
From The Malady of the Century by Max Simon Nordau
Mr. Hemming writes that upon Miller’s death, doctors found 23 battle scars, a large wound on his right abdominal cartilage, two rifle balls lodged in his liver, and mutilated fingers on his left hand.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026
Our glamorous and gruesome history is all there in a close-up of “Chinatown’s” Jack Nicholson: a movie star with a mutilated nose.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 15, 2026
"It is not the outsiders who have damaged Africa the most, but the mutilated will of the people and the selfishness of some of our own leaders," she wrote.
From BBC ● Jan. 6, 2025
They can cause dangerous diseases like Cryptococcus neoformans and Candida auris among our own kind, massacre beloved fellow animals like frogs and bats and even turn less-charismatic animals like cicadas into horrifyingly mutilated zombies.
From Salon ● Oct. 18, 2024
She goes from car to car, begging, with a picture of a mutilated migrant she’s trying to help and the prescription she must fill.
From "Enrique's Journey" by Sonia Nazario
Many mutilating and distressing skin disorders such as skin cancers and deep fungal infections were also confused with leprosy by the general public.
From Salon ● Mar. 21, 2024
Former prime minister Boris Johnson has warned, however, against "mutilating" the project in a letter to Rishi Sunak.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2023
“Moon Knight” is not the first time that an MCU title has been called out for mutilating an Asian language.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 13, 2022
Both testicles were eventually removed – he called it “the mutilating surgery”.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 9, 2020
“Professor,” drawled Malfoy, “Weasley’s mutilating my roots, sir.”
From "Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban" by J.K. Rowling
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.
