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Use parts of one thing to repair another thing
Answer for the clue "Use parts of one thing to repair another thing ", 11 letters:
cannibalize
Word definitions for cannibalize in dictionaries
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
cannibalise \cannibalise\, cannibalize \cannibalize\v. t. to use parts of (something, such as a machine), to repair something else. Syn: use parts of.
Wiktionary
Word definitions in Wiktionary
vb. (alternative form of cannibalise English)
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Word definitions in Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1798 (in Burke's memoirs), figurative, and meaning "be perverted into cannibalism," from cannibal + -ize . Meaning "take parts from one construction and use them in another" is from 1943, originally of military equipment. Related: Cannibalized ; cannibalizing ...
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Word definitions in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
verb EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS ▪ It was suggested that female spiders, by cannibalizing courting males, have actively selected for small male size. ▪ Most of the craft had been cannibalized and ripped apart. ▪ The competition between superstores and malls has ...
WordNet
Word definitions in WordNet
v. eat human flesh [syn: cannibalise ] use parts of something to repair something else [syn: cannibalise ]
Usage examples of cannibalize.
As for the cannons, they would have to be cannibalized from some of the schooners, a risky move since Nicabar would no doubt arrive with escort ships.
The ruins of an earlier generation of shacks and sheds stood here and there throughout the valetwisted metal structures cannibalized for their materials, collapsed domes, sagging plastic cryocabins with gaping holes in the walls and roofs.
More would fall this winter, Russie thought, and buildings wrecked in two rounds of fighting would be cannibalized for wood.
Lieutenant Robbins and I have worked out a plan whereby we can salvage seven of our most severely damaged Speeds by cannibalizing four that were too damaged to repair, leaving us with a total of twenty-six more or less operable, although our supply of spares is dangerously low.
Near the back, squeezed in among replacement parts for steamers and broilers and wavers, he found two older Ksarus which had been partly cannibalized for parts, and one gleaming current model.
Outside of the wire there was a full-scale vagrant jungle, complete with dead vehicles, cannibalized containers, Styrofoam and cardboard shanties, cookfires, and teeming humanity.
Many Iraqi aircraft have been cannibalized to provide spare parts, while others are capable of only very short flights.
Matt straps in alongside the others, in cannibalized, bolted-down seats that were originally designed for minor jolts and unscheduled burns in free-fall maneuvering.
Lydia had not expected that the clutter of data-input devices, tangles of cable, and cannibalized electrical apparatus on the tilted table could be the controls.
The rest of the panels, reliefs and medallions had been cannibalized from monuments to earlier emperors such as Hadrian, Trajan and Marcus Aurelius.
Using their bodies to shield their efforts from the tireless spy eye, Blanchard and his freinds had cannibalized portions of that equipment.
As early as the 18th century, publishers and booksellers expressed the fear that libraries will cannibalize their trade.
And we can get the other elements needed by cannibalizing, and an alloying unit aboard could be adapted to manufacture the transistors themselves.
A pre-war Chinese tank engine that had been cannibalized years ago, nothing more than a collection of barcoded spare parts, keeping old trains on the branch lines serviceable.
George Breze was a one-man conglomerate who operated his sprawling empire from a shack on Sandpit Road, surrounded by rental trucks, mini-storage buildings, a do-it-yourself car wash, and junk cars waiting to be cannibalized.