dismemberment

English

Etymology

From dismember +‎ -ment.

Pronunciation

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Noun

dismemberment (countable and uncountable, plural dismemberments)

1. (countable) The act of dismembering.
   • 1911, R. Austin Freeman, chapter 13, in The Vanishing Man:

     The skill is shown by the neat way in which the dismemberment has been carried out. The parts have not been rudely hacked asunder, but have been separated at the joints.

   • 1968, Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 2nd edition, London: Fontana Press, published 1993, page 25:

     Modern romance, like Greek tragedy, celebrates the mystery of dismemberment, which is life in time.

   • 1986, Lewis Binford et al., “Zhoukoudian: A Closer Look”, in Current Anthropology, volume 27, number 5, page 460:

     The metapodials appear to have been marked during dismemberment from the lower limbs.

2. (uncountable) The state or condition of being dismembered.
   • 1831, Thomas Carlyle, “Tailors”, in Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh. […], London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book third, page 201:

     [I]s not the fair fabric of Society itself, with all its royal mantles and pontifical stoles, whereby, from nakedness and dismemberment, we are organised into Polities, into nations, and a whole coöperating Mankind, the creation, as has here been often irrefragably evinced, of the Tailor alone?

3. (countable) Removal from membership; detachment from an organization, group, etc.
   • 1867, "Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. Ex Parte Magruder," The American Law Register (1852-1891), vol. 15, no. 5, New Series Volume 6, (Mar.), p. 295,

     The decision of the Supreme Court involved a dismemberment from the bar.

   • 1946, William Platt, “Studies in War-Time Organisation: (6) East African Command”, in African Affairs, volume 45, number 178, page 27:

     As the Italian East African Empire was on the verge of extinction in the autumn of 1941, East African Command was created by dismemberment from Middle East.

References

• “dismemberment”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “dismemberment”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989.