eviscerate

English

WOTD – 25 July 2012

Etymology

From Latin ēviscerātus, past participle of ēviscerāre (“to disembowel”), from e- (“out”) +‎ viscera (“bowels”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪˈvɪsəˌɹeɪt/

• Audio (AU):

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Verb

1. (transitive) To disembowel, to remove the viscera.
2. (transitive) To destroy or make ineffectual or meaningless.
   • 2019 August 15, Bob Stanley, “'Groovy, groovy, groovy': listening to Woodstock 50 years on – all 38 discs”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     Coming on stage at sunrise on the Sunday, Jefferson Airplane greet the new day explaining they’re not a “hippie band” but “manic morning music”, then eviscerate Fred Neil’s Other Side of Life. Somebody to Love is also taken at breakneck speed – this turns out to be an energy tablet before a leaden day.

   • 2005, Congress, Congressional Record, volume 151, part 16, page 21847:

     Earlier the gentleman from California (Mr. Cardoza) got up on the floor, and he was upset that somebody had said that the underlying bill would eviscerate the Endangered Species Act.

3. (transitive) To elicit the essence of.
4. (transitive, surgery) To remove a bodily organ or its contents.
5. (intransitive, of viscera) To protrude through a surgical incision.

Synonyms

• exenterate

Derived terms

• evisceration
• eviscerator

Translations

to disembowel

• Bulgarian: изкормвам (izkormvam)
• Dutch: ontdarmen (nl), ontweiden (nl), van ingewanden ontdoen
• Finnish: suolistaa (fi)
• French: éviscérer (fr)
• Galician: eviscerar (gl)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• German: ausnehmen (de), ausweiden (de)
• Hungarian: kizsigerel (hu)
• Latin: ēviscerō
• Maori: tuaki, hāparangi
• Russian: потроши́ть (ru) (potrošítʹ), вынима́ть вну́тренности (vynimátʹ vnútrennosti)
• Spanish: destripar (es), eviscerar (es), desentrañar (es)

to make ineffectual or meaningless

• Armenian: բովանդակազրկել (hy) (bovandakazrkel)
• Dutch: ontkrachten (nl),verzwakken (nl)
• Finnish: mitätöidä (fi)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• German: entkräften (de), schwächen (de), bedeutungslos machen, aushöhlen, unterlaufen (de)
• Russian: опустошать (ru) (opustošatʹ), опорожнять (ru) (oporožnjatʹ)

to elicit the essence of

• Dutch: uithollen (nl)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Finnish: kiteyttää (fi)

to remove an organ or its contents

• Finnish: poistaa (fi)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• German: Organ entnehmen

to protrude through surgical incision

• Finnish: leikata (fi)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Russian: выхолащивать (ru) (vyxolaščivatʹ)

Further reading

• “eviscerate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “eviscerate”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “eviscerate”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• tea service

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Italian

Verb

eviscerate

1. inflection of eviscerare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative
   3. feminine plural past participle

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Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /eː.u̯is.keˈraː.te/, [eːu̯ɪs̠kɛˈräːt̪ɛ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /e.viʃ.ʃeˈra.te/, [eviʃːeˈräːt̪e]

Participle

(deprecated template usage) ēviscerāte

1. vocative masculine singular of ēviscerātus