pulverize
[puhl-vuh-rahyz]
- 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.
Show More
- to become reduced to dust.
Show More
Also especially British, pul·ver·ise.
Origin of pulverize
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
shatterdemolishvaporizeannihilatedecimateflattenvanquishcrunchpoundmullbuckfragmentbraysplinterfragmentizegrindcrushbeatpowdergranulateExamples from the Web for pulverized
Contemporary Examples
I landed spread-eagle on my stomach, my head and back struck by a relentless storm of pulverized glass and cement.
Barthas would look out on scenes of churned up earth filled with human remains and the debris of thousands of pulverized lives.
Blood and Mud: A French Soldier’s WWI Memoir Vividly Describes Trench WarfareMarc Wortman
May 1, 2014
Subtleties of study design and interpretation are pulverized in the name of the sound bite of course, but this is old news.
Almost every “fact” is wrung through an ideological thresher and pulverized.
Four weeks ago, his family removed his expensive headstone from his grave, pulverized it, and placed the remains in a landfill.
Historical Examples
The mule is started, and in four or five hours the quartz is pulverized.
Hittel on Gold Mines and MiningJohn S. Hittell
Often the dried and pulverized solids of skim milk are used.
Human Foods and Their Nutritive ValueHarry Snyder
Adjoining this Refinery was the department in which charcoal was made and pulverized.
History of the Confederate Powder WorksGeo. W. Rains
The leaves were dried and pulverized, and then made into a paste.
Museum of AntiquityL. W. Yaggy
Why, the two of them could have pulverized this pretty fellow opposite!
The Pagan MadonnaHarold MacGrath
pulverize
pulverise
- 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
Show More
Word Origin
C16: from Late Latin pulverizare or French pulvériser, from Latin pulverum, from pulvis dust
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for pulverized
pulverize
v.
early 15c., from Late Latin pulverizare "reduce to powder or dust," from Latin pulvis (genitive pulveris) "dust, powder" (see pollen). Related: Pulverized; pulverizing.
Show More
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper