pulverize
Americanverb (used with object)
-
pulverizes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
pulverized,
past participle, past
-
pulverizing
present participle
-
to reduce to dust or powder, as by pounding or grinding.
-
to demolish or crush completely.
-
Slang. to defeat, hurt badly, or, figuratively, render helpless.
The Kid pulverized Jackson with a series of brutal lefts. He's a veteran nightclub comic who can pulverize any audience in seconds.
verb (used without object)
-
pulverizes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
pulverized,
past participle, past
-
pulverizing
present participle
verb
-
to reduce (a substance) to fine particles, as by crushing or grinding, or (of a substance) to be so reduced
-
(tr) to destroy completely; defeat or injure seriously
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
pulverizesimple
-
pulverizessimple
-
have pulverizedperfect
-
has pulverizedperfect
-
am pulverizingprogressive
-
are pulverizingprogressive
-
is pulverizingprogressive
-
have been pulverizingperfect progressive
-
has been pulverizingperfect progressive
Past
-
pulverizedsimple
-
had pulverizedperfect
-
was pulverizingprogressive
-
were pulverizingprogressive
-
had been pulverizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of pulverize
1575–85; < Late Latin pulverizāre to reduce to powder, equivalent to Latin pulver- (stem of pulvis; akin to pollen ) dust + -izāre -ize
Explanation
When you pulverize something, you break it up until it becomes dust or powder. You might pulverize coffee beans in a grinder, running it until the coffee turns to powder. Pulvis is the Latin word for "dust." When something is turned into dust, often it becomes useless. That's why pulverize can also mean "to destroy or demolish." Construction crews pulverize a building using wrecking balls and sometimes even explosives. The materials left behind are broken into such small parts that they can't be salvaged for other uses.
Vocabulary lists containing pulverize
The Lightning Thief
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List 2
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Hatchet
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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:
Back when McIlroy first rose to stardom, he turned heads with his ability to pulverize the ball.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 13, 2026
The site also is being used to pulverize concrete removed from burned properties, according to the U.S.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 4, 2025
Do not pulverize in a machine, just chop fine, then mix with crumbs and coconut in a bowl and set aside.
From Salon ● Apr. 25, 2024
Why do pebbles pulverize after they leave the comet?
From Science Daily ● Mar. 21, 2024
When they swallow food, it is sent to the gizzard, where the grinding stones pulverize the food.
From "Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer" by Kelly Jones
In this recipe at Food & Wine, David Chang "pulverizes the kombu to a powder and blends it with softened butter to baste striped bass fillets."
From Salon ● May 14, 2024
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK—Every year, Ranga Dias pulverizes about $100,000 in diamonds, crushing them to a gray powder he tosses in the trash.
From Science Magazine ● Aug. 26, 2021
But in rare instances, “we have seen a failure mode where the core pulverizes and falls back into the hole.”
From Scientific American ● Aug. 12, 2021
The NFL doesn’t settle, at least not this soon; it pulverizes.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 16, 2019
In extreme cold, snow pulverizes dryly till steel runners drag as though slid through sand.
From Pardners by Rex Ellingwood Beach
Báez, now 23, pulverized the very first pitch he saw as a big-leaguer over the center-field fence, a titanic blast that landed 449 feet away from home plate.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
Drizzle with the melted butter and olive oil, then toss gently until the cracker pieces are coated but not pulverized.
From Salon ● Jul. 14, 2026
Entire buildings were pulverized in La Guaira, an area north of the capital Caracas, which also endured severe damage.
From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026
The 17-year-old from Cross Ash, Monmouthshire, had been racing downhill mountain bikes since he was eight, wanting to "go fast all the time", when he crashed before a race and pulverized one of his kidneys.
From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2025
He still remembered one foster mother, an older woman who had smelled like cloyingly sweet powder, like someone had pulverized rose petals and sprinkled them on her clothes.
From "Far from the Tree" by Robin Benway
It manufactures neodymium magnets by pouring liquid alloy onto a rotating, cooled disk, then rapidly quenching and pulverizing it to freeze the delicate crystalline structure at a microscopic scale before it can grow.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 2, 2026
From the first notes of its new single “Specter” — a brooding vocal workout for Sebastian that ended on pulverizing riffs — Bad Omens used cutting-edge tools and underground influence to elicit arena-rock catharsis.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 27, 2026
It can handle 10 panels a minute, as many as 7,500 a day, extracting bits of copper and silver and aluminum, and pulverizing most of the rest into a gritty powder.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 30, 2023
In contrast, corn chips are created by pulverizing corn kernels into a dough, mixing it with water, and subjecting the slurry to intense heat and pressure using an extruder.
From Slate ● Jul. 18, 2023
Dimple yelled, her voice crashing into him, reaching into his chest, and pulverizing his heart.
From "When Dimple Met Rishi" by Sandhya Menon
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