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
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
List 2
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Hatchet
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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
Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it.
From "The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan
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
And repeatedly charging and discharging the battery typically pulverizes the silicon, killing the battery.
From Science Magazine ● Sep. 6, 2022
For Alcaraz, who positively pulverizes the ball, the drop shot plays a different role.
From Washington Post ● May 27, 2022
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 reason is that the soil, being less nutritious, the worm must eat more of it and, in so doing, pulverizes and fertilizes it.
From The Adventures of a Grain of Dust by Hallam Hawksworth
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
Retrieving the bodies from the Palestinian territory was difficult because it had been "pulverized," meaning that specialized equipment would be needed to get them out, they added.
From Barron's ● Oct. 15, 2025
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
She rendered goat fat into something like butter, and pulverized antelope meat into hamburgers with a device I think had been rigged from the propeller of a motorboat.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
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
Che drops a few chemicals into the vials, which also contain a small metal bead, and place them into a countertop device that shakes the containers, pulverizing the contents.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 17, 2023
How could they stay on the same October field against an All-Star team that has just spent three nights pulverizing them?
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 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
“Or Mars—whichever. Maybe that’s why I’m not pulverizing you for asking so many questions.”
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
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.
