disintegrate
Americanverb (used without object)
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to separate into parts or lose intactness or solidness; break up; deteriorate.
The old book is gradually disintegrating with age.
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Physics.
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to decay.
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(of a nucleus) to change into one or more different nuclei after being bombarded by high-energy particles, as alpha particles or gamma rays.
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verb (used with object)
verb
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to break or be broken into fragments or constituent parts; shatter
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to lose or cause to lose cohesion or unity
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(intr) to lose judgment or control; deteriorate
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physics
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to induce or undergo nuclear fission, as by bombardment with fast particles
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another word for decay
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Synonym Usage
See decay.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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disintegrationnoun
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disintegratornoun
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disintegrableadjective
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disintegrativeadjective
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disintegratoryadjective
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nondisintegratingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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disintegratesimple
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disintegratessimple
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have disintegratedperfect
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has disintegratedperfect
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am disintegratingprogressive
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are disintegratingprogressive
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is disintegratingprogressive
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have been disintegratingperfect progressive
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has been disintegratingperfect progressive
Past
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disintegratedsimple
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had disintegratedperfect
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was disintegratingprogressive
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were disintegratingprogressive
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had been disintegratingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of disintegrate
Explanation
Soak your tooth in a cup of soda for long enough and it will disintegrate, or break apart from decay. The word disintegrate comes from a combination of the prefix dis- meaning "do the opposite of" and the Latin integrare meaning "to make whole." When something disintegrates, it does the opposite of become whole; it falls apart. Objects can either disintegrate over time — like a tooth soaking in a cup of soda, or instantaneously — like a building disintegrating into dust from an explosion.
Vocabulary lists containing disintegrate
The Lightning Thief
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Fahrenheit 451
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Farewell to Manzanar
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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:
"You can't move a mobile home that's been sitting for 25 years. It will disintegrate," says Mountain Meadows resident Ben Moore, 35, who first moved to the park with his father in high school.
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026
“Only last month U.S. authorities said that it was illegal for countries to charge tolls on international waterways, so this threat may disintegrate when it hits reality,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 13, 2026
Language is malleable, but it has to retain some meaning, or the boundaries of our society will disintegrate more than they already have.
From Salon ● May 10, 2026
Before it began to disintegrate, K1 was likely slightly larger than a typical comet, measuring about 5 miles across.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 21, 2026
Old comets, heated by repeated passages near the Sun, break up, evaporate and disintegrate.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
But if data disintegrates, he said, he would vote in favor of a cut.
From Barron's ● Feb. 23, 2026
He adds that if we sacrifice that commitment for A.I., “you’d get to a point pretty fast where it just disintegrates and becomes the ugliest definition of the word product.”
From Slate ● Aug. 14, 2024
Aluminum-based superconducting qubits can store information for a relatively long time before the data inevitably disintegrates.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 26, 2024
A squall of noise disintegrates into a martial riff that would send fans into a frenzy.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2023
He moves to place it on her shoulders but the lace disintegrates between his fingers, falling into dust.
From "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern
He points out that Russia virtually disintegrated twice in the 20th century, once after the Bolshevik Revolution and again after the Cold War, only to claw its way back.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
The numbers are far from the peaks reached in 2011, when tens of thousands arrived in just a few months as maritime border controls disintegrated during the Arab Spring revolts.
From Barron's ● Jul. 4, 2026
It was a piece of old Nashville that’s slowly disintegrated.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2026
At Spurs the club's identity, fragile as it was, disintegrated around him.
From BBC ● May 13, 2026
It did not matter that she had no idea of what to do or say to the Presence— after the wordless knowing and the soundless touching, her dreams disintegrated.
From "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison
So does he have the numbers and is he willing to move – particularly if it is harder for him to point to Sir Keir's authority disintegrating because there is already a challenger?
From BBC ● May 11, 2026
The former, which Miller once considered calling “The Inside of His Head,” is fluidly constructed, playing fast and loose with time as it tracks the disintegrating mental life of down-and-out salesman Willy Loman.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 1, 2026
It is on its fourth cheese supplier, and still is trying to figure out how to keep the cheese from disintegrating while the shell waits for fillings like ground beef and yet-more cheese.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 22, 2025
What you want is a cookie that will absorb without disintegrating — a texture that yields but doesn’t vanish.
From Salon ● Jul. 29, 2025
It is an old time-table now, disintegrating at its folds and headed "This schedule in effect July 5th, 1922."
From " The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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.
