1. Word finder
  2. Word definitions
  3. dismantle

Find the word definition

What is "dismantle"

Crossword clues for dismantle

dismantle
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
dismantle
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
power
▪ Mistrust of the family's ultimate intentions may also explain the ease with which Gloucester was able to dismantle their power.
program
▪ Dole also switched his position on affirmative action, saying he wanted to dismantle a program he previously supported.
▪ Ayn Rand is just another excuse to dismantle programs that support social welfare.
▪ Atkinson then publicly apologized to Wilson and said he would speed up dismantling the program, and the regents meeting was canceled.
system
▪ Pasaret is dismantling a hiring system where a job applicant's chief qualification was his or her party loyalty.
▪ When he won, he quickly dismantled the system.
▪ While Britain started dismantling its selective system in the 1960s, Northern Ireland retained it.
▪ His book Perestroika helps establish that from the very start Gorbachev was out to reorient, not dismantle their system.
▪ But it remains unclear how far the plan will go in dismantling an entrenched system.
weapon
▪ And at the so-called Pantex plant in Amarillo, Texas, technicians are dismantling nuclear weapons to comply with arms-control treaties.
▪ The estimates do not include the cost of dismantling nuclear weapons and military nuclear facilities.
▪ A: That money has helped dismantle several thousand weapons.
▪ Another worry is that nuclear material from defunct nuclear power plants and dismantled nuclear weapons might end up in the wrong hands.
■ VERB
begin
▪ Big firms like Fiat and Pirelli began dismantling and de-centralizing labour forces.
▪ Mr Linley began dismantling his equipment.
▪ Dole aides began to dismantle the camera riser.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Jimmy was in the garage, dismantling his bike.
▪ No one is suggesting that we dismantle the Social Security system.
▪ The Detroit Tigers dismantled the Chicago White Sox 16-0.
▪ The first thing the soldiers did was to dismantle the enemy's surveillance equipment.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Before a technician dismantled the device, a nearby restaurant, a post office and City Hall were evacuated.
▪ From there, police and park workers on the ground would move in and dismantle them.
▪ He suggested that the huntsmen should dismantle the gate to release the animal.
▪ If this measure could indeed alienate Latinos, why do several recent polls show overwhelming support from Latinos for dismantling bilingual education?
▪ The occupation regime was gradually dismantled, and sovereignty granted by instalments.
▪ These structures need to be erected and dismantled quickly with a minimum of disturbance whilst encountering many difficult locations.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Dismantle

Dismantle \Dis*man"tle\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Dismantled; p. pr. & vb. n. Dismantling.] [F. d['e]manteler, OF. desmanteler; pref: des- (L. dis-) + manteler to cover with a cloak, defend, fr. mantel, F. manteau, cloak. See Mantle.]

  1. To strip or deprive of dress; to divest.

  2. To strip of furniture and equipments, guns, etc.; to unrig; to strip of walls or outworks; to break down; as, to dismantle a fort, a town, or a ship.

    A dismantled house, without windows or shutters to keep out the rain.
    --Macaulay.

  3. To disable; to render useless.
    --Comber.

    Syn: To demo?sh; raze. See Demol?sh.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
dismantle

1570s, from Middle French desmanteler "to tear down the walls of a fortress," literally "strip of a cloak," from des- "off, away" (see dis-) + manteler "to cloak" (see mantle). Related: Dismantled; dismantling.

Wiktionary
dismantle

vb. 1 (context transitive originally English) To divest, strip of dress or covering. 2 (context transitive English) To remove fittings or furnishings from. 3 (context transitive English) To take apart; to disassemble; to take to pieces.

WordNet
dismantle

  1. v. tear down so as to make flat with the ground; "The building was levelled" [syn: level, raze, rase, tear down, take down, pull down] [ant: raise]

  2. take apart into its constituent pieces [syn: disassemble, take apart, break up, break apart] [ant: assemble]

  3. take off or remove; "strip a wall of its wallpaper" [syn: strip]

Usage examples of "dismantle".

There was no way in which the aircraft capable of carrying the dismantled pieces of the airframe, an extra forty-five thousand pounds weight, could land and take off at the lake.

It needed replacing, and with a curt warning to Angevine, and to the sound of her horrified yells, he began to dismantle it.

As he dismantled the hive a blacksnake approached him, but he was able to grab its tail and crack it like a whip, easily smashing its head on a branch.

The new theory concerning the Club Cadiz murders was to be kept from the press, in return for the dismantling of the Q-ray machine.

They were greeted by Desis One and Two, who flanked a long coffee table on which there were four MAC-10 machine pistols, twenty magazine clips, sixteen grenades, four miniaturized radios, two flamethrowers, four infrared binoculars, and a dismantled egg-shaped bomb that could blow up at least a quarter of the state of New Hampshire - the lesser southeastern part.

Callum dismantles the older gauge to save it from further damage and emerges out into the howling night, ducking against the spray as he locks the door behind him again.

One sees how much, from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, the hegemonism of possessing minorities, unveiled by Marx and Engels, and the anthropocentrism dismantled by Freud are accompanied by europocentrism in the area of human and social sciences, and more particularly in those in direct relationship with non-European peoples.

I intend to leave it that way, though the Chatterford gates will be soon dismantled after tomorrow.

Soon all the stands would be screened with mats or boarded up or dismantled.

Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty permanent, and were working to safeguard and ultimately dismantle nuclear weapons and materials under the Nunn-Lugar program.

Overdepressed in defeat, as oversanguine in victory, the King of the Franks ordered the catapults and mangonels he had brought to the siege of Arques dismantled, and retired to seclusion to put his mind in order and recast his shattered plans.

Why, clearly the occupation of Fort Sumter, and the dismantling of Fort Moultrie by Major Anderson, in the face of your pledges, and without explanation or practical disavowal.

This slope is probably formed by the ruins of the gateway and tower having been pitched into the ditch, as the readiest way of getting rid of them when the castle was dismantled afterwards.

The huge, sleek turbopump designed to bring return coolant from the heat exchanger to the number one engine had been partly dismantled by Francis and her riggers.

The enormous antennas were dismantled and the intercept operators sent back to NSA a decade later, in 1977.