Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To reduce to powder; pulverize.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Divided into small parts; comminuted.
  • To make small or fine; reduce to minute particles or to a fine powder by breaking, pounding, braying, rasping, or grinding; pulverize; triturate, levigate.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To reduce to minute particles, or to a fine powder; to pulverize; to triturate; to grind.
  • transitive verb See under Fracture.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To pulverize; to smash.
  • verb To cause fragmentation of bone, an intense skull fracture.
  • verb To break into smaller portions.
  • noun pulverized material

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb reduce to small pieces or particles by pounding or abrading

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin comminuere, comminūt- : com-, intensive pref.; see com– + minuere, to lessen; see mei- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

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  • Some paleobotanists study plant remains that have been abraded or degraded into microscopic fragments preserved in rocks and sediments. In the paleobotanical literature one can find references to such fragments described as being comminuted, macerated, or masticated, depending on whether the remains were broken up by mechanical means such as stream transport, wave action, or natural decay (comminuted or macerated) or by chewing and digestive processes (masticated).

    December 31, 2008