Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Mutilate

Mu′ti·late (·lāt), a. [L. mutilatus, p. p. of mutilare to mutilate, fr. mutilus maimed; cf. Gr. μίτυλος, μίτυλος. Cf. Mutton.] 1. Deprived of, or having lost, an important part; mutilated. Sir T. Browne.

2. (Zoöl.) Having finlike appendages or flukes instead of legs, as a cetacean.

Mu′ti·late, n. (Zoöl.) A cetacean, or a sirenian.

Mu′ti·late (·lāt), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Mutilated; p. pr. & vb. n. Mutilating.] 1. 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.

2. 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.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.