mutilate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin mutilātus (“maimed, cut off”),^[2][3][4][5] the past participle of mutilō (“to cut or lop off, to maim”),^[2][6][3][7] from mutilus (“maimed, without horns”).^[2][7][8] The adjective came first, and Barnhart thinks the verb grew partly out of it and was partly borrowed directly.^[3] The OED calls this adjective of unknown origin and Etymonline of uncertain etymology.^[2][5] It is often compared with Old Irish mut (“short”),^{[2][4][9][10]} and with Scottish Gaelic mutach (“short and thick”),^[9][10] and is akin to muticus (“docked”).^[4][10] Barnhart gives Proto-Indo-European *mutos (“curtailed”),^[3] and Weekley compared Ancient Greek μύτιλος (mútilos, “hornless”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Having some part destroyed or missing, of a thing: the adjective, before 1522, in G. Douglas's translation of Virgil.^[2][4] The verb, to spoil a book or other text by cutting out a part, is first recorded in 1534, in Thomas More.^[2][3][4]

Semantic evolution

Partridge glosses the Latin verb as first "to de-horn", then "to maim".^[10] In English the adjective was used of a body from 1525.^[2] The verb was applied first to writings and books, in the 1530s, and then to people, in the 1560s according to Etymonline and about 1570 according to the OED,^[5][2] and the two senses have run side by side since.^[2][12] Etymonline adds that it properly means to take away a principal part, stressing the harm done to wholeness and beauty.^[5] An extended use, to cut something back until it no longer works or to change it ruinously, is also recorded about 1570.^[2] Johnson (1755) gave only "to deprive of some essential part", with quotations about ribs and mutilated texts of old poets.^[13] In biology the adjective described a creature or plant lacking a part common to its relatives (1760–1885), and the noun, from 1863 in J. D. Dana, a member of the former order Mutilata of aquatic mammals.^[2][4] The noun mutilation is older than the verb, from 1525.^[3]

Timeline

• before 1522 – adjective, of a thing, with a part missing.^[2][4]
• 1525 – adjective, of a body, lacking a limb.^[2]
• 1534 – verb, to spoil a text by cutting out a part.^[2][3]
• c. 1570 – verb, to deprive a person or animal of a limb or organ.^[2] Etymonline has the 1560s.^[5]
• c. 1570 – verb, extended, to cut back or change ruinously.^[2]
• 1760 – adjective, in biology, lacking a part common to related forms (obsolete by 1885).^[2]
• 1863 – noun, a member of the former order of aquatic mammals, Mutilata (obsolete by 1870).^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cut off or destroy a limb or other essential part of a person or animal; to maim: The trap had mutilated the fox's hind leg.^[14][4][2]
2. To spoil a text or other thing by removing or damaging a part: The censor mutilated the letter with scissors.^[14][4][2]
3. To cut back or change something so severely that it no longer works as it should.^[2][4]

Adjective

1. Mutilated (now literary).^[2][12][4]
2. (biology) Lacking a part that related forms have, as a cetacean lacks hind limbs (obsolete, 1760–1885).^[2][12][4]

Noun

1. A cetacean or sirenian (obsolete, 1863–1870).^[2][12][4]

Word family

• mutilation
• mutilative
• mutilator

Related words

• muticous

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b c d Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins