What does "mutilate" mean?
Mutilate: (Zoöl.) Having finlike appendages or flukes instead of legs, as a cetacean.
Additional senses
- 2.A cetacean, or a sirenian.
- 3.To cut off or remove a limb or essential part of; to maim; to cripple; to hack; as, to mutilate the body, a statue, etc.
- 4.To destroy or remove a material part of, so as to render imperfect; as, to mutilate the orations of Cicero. Among the mutilated poets of antiquity, there is none whose fragments are so beautiful as those of Sappho. Addison. Mutilated gear, Mutilated wheel (Mach.), a gear wheel from a portion of whose periphery the cogs are omitted. It is used for giving intermittent movements.
Sources
- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).
- Canonical URL: https://worddirectanswers.com/answers/what-does-mutilate-mean
- Steward: Jason Burns
- Published: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00 · Modified: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00