mutilate
Americanverb (used with object)
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:
Cassandra Pybus says there is no doubt that Crowther did mutilate Lanne, citing letters he wrote.
From BBC ● Sep. 14, 2024
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
It would stiffen the maximum penalties for people who willfully steal, destroy, conceal, mutilate or alter such records from $1,000 and one year in prison to $10,000 and two years in prison.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 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
Can we criticize the humaneness of one who, at the butcher's bench, mutilates the body from which life has gone?
From An Ethical Problem Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals by Leffingwell, Albert
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
“Since you have preserved my narration,” said he, “I would not that a mutilated one should go down to posterity.”
From "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley
Former prime minister Boris Johnson has warned, however, against "mutilating" the project in a letter to Rishi Sunak.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2023
Meanwhile, humans seem to be "mutilating" the tree of life, according to some scientists, while climate change is threatening extinction.
From Salon ● Sep. 21, 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
A statement issued by Russia’s health ministry said: “The international medical community concurs that the so-called female circumcision is a mutilating practice and is not anything positive.”
From The Guardian ● Nov. 5, 2016
“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.
