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to disembowel

to disembowel

19 9.9
To remove the insides from a person or animal
  • verb
  • /ˌdɪsɪmˈbaʊəl/
  • Offensive
translation icon : eviscerar
  • Before cooking the fish, you must disembowel it to remove the internal organs.

We're Brits and we tortured him and we cut off his genitals and we disemboweled him and took his entrails around the City of London as a warning to others.

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Examples

  • Plain spotted the disemboweled hulk while scouting for photo locations.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • You know, at first we thought they disembowel their prey, but no.

  • Take it away and disembowel it.

  • We lock it down and disembowel it.

  • What we have on our hands is a dead body, disemboweled.

    Academic text (1998)
  • In the act of pulling out, he gets disemboweled and dies.

  • Only they were disemboweled in such a meticulous fashion.

  • They would disembowel me.

  • One has been disemboweled, its intestines draped over its back and floating alongside.

    Academic text (1998)
  • With their tunics open, the Zulus would disembowel them, opening men from balls to breastbone with one swift strike.

    Fiction book (1996)

Synonyms

to gut
vsto disembowel
  • NSFW
122 6.7

To remove the inner parts of an animal or a building

refers specifically to taking organs from people or animals
to eviscerate
vsto disembowel
  • NSFW
6 9.5

To remove the inside parts of a body, often in animals or surgery

applies to removing organs from people or animals generally
to draw
vsto disembowel
  • NSFW
4 8.9

Remove the inside organs of an animal before cooking

covers organ removal from people or animals beyond just food use
to exenterate
vsto disembowel
  • Specialized
9.9

To remove the contents of an organ by surgery

means removing whole internal organs from the body rather than just organ contents

How Violent

to disembowel
  • Offensive
19 9.9
to stab
  • NSFW
459 2.7
wound
971 2.2
cut
337 1.0
to bruise
102 2.6

Surface Forms

disembowel infinitive
disemboweling present participle
disemboweling present participle
disembowels third person singular
disembowelled past participle

Morphology

disembowel = embowel (transparent) = dis + em + bowel

While 'embowel' is analyzable as 'em-' + 'bowel', the verb meaning is somewhat specialized and the prefix 'em-' is not fully transparent in semantics, so the immediate base is only partially clear.

Etymology

Disembowel comes from two parts: dis- meaning 'away' (as in disappear) and bowel meaning 'intestines'. So to disembowel is to take the intestines 'away', to pull them out of a person or animal, which is why it means removing the internal organs.