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Glite Dictionary
🛡️ To make harmless 🐍 To remove fangs
to defang

to defang

1 7.8
To remove the sharp biting teeth from a snake or other venomous animal
  • verb
  • /dɪˈfæŋ/
translation icon : desdentado
  • I defanged a snake.

Examples

  • I just defanged a snake.

    Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)

  • You trusted me, and I defanged the snake.

    Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)

  • No, you see, those asps, they were defanged.

    Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

  • "Oh, yeah, she'll get it declawed and defanged.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • The veterinarian carefully defanged the rattlesnake before relocating it to a safer habitat.

  • After the owner defanged the snake, it became less dangerous for the children to handle.

  • Before the presentation, she defanged the criticisms by addressing them proactively.

How Disarmed

to euthanize
  • Specialized
22 8.5
to disable
87 3.5
to defang
1 7.8
to restrain
86 4.6
to trim
95 2.6

Surface Forms

defang infinitive
defanged past
defanged past participle
defanging present participle
defangs third person singular

Morphology

defang = fang (transparent) = de + fang

The meaning is directly predictable as 'remove the fangs from' using the productive privative prefix 'de-' with the noun 'fang'.

Etymology

Defang comes from the parts de- meaning 'remove' and fang meaning 'tooth', so it literally means 'remove the tooth'. That's why defang can mean taking a snake's fangs away.