disembodied
Britishadjective
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lacking a body or freed from the body; incorporeal
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lacking in substance, solidity, or any firm relation to reality
Explanation
Something that's disembodied is disconnected from a solid form or body. If you hear a disembodied voice coming from your basement, it's spooky and ghostly, with no visible shape or form. Use the adjective disembodied to describe something that's separate from any substantial structure. A magic trick might make it appear that a disembodied head is floating in the air, and a mysterious voice or cry ringing out in the night would also seem to be disembodied. The root of disembodied is the verb embody, which had the earliest meaning of "invest a soul or spirit with a physical form."
Vocabulary lists containing disembodied
And Then There Were None
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The Chocolate War
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The Haunting of Hill House
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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.
“The invisible narrator was the formal term for the disembodied speaker,” Mr. Doherty tells us, but audiences—“uncertain initially of the whereabouts of the visitation—called it the ‘ghost voice.’”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
A siren blares and a disembodied voice counts down: "Three, two, one".
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026
It was an uncanny experience: Literal scores of people who had previously been disembodied online avatars or voices on the phone were now conjured before me in the flesh, like a resting-pulse sequel to Jumanji.
From Slate ● Sep. 21, 2025
“There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy,” says the disembodied voice.
From Salon ● May 17, 2025
On the court, the court he loved, the court he ruled at times, Ben felt disembodied, running to the point of exhaustion, but more alive and more human than he would ever be again.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
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.
