Definitions

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

  • intransitive verb To take apart.
  • intransitive verb To come apart.
  • intransitive verb To break up in random fashion.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To take apart.

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

  • intransitive verb to be able to come apart easily; to be converted into constituent parts.
  • transitive verb to take apart; to disconnect the parts of; to convert a whole into its constituent pieces.
  • transitive verb (Computers) to convert a computer program in machine language into an equivalent assembly-language file.

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

  • verb To take to pieces; to reverse the process of assembly.

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

  • verb take apart into its constituent pieces

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

dis- + assemble

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Examples

  • And also there was comment and mention made about the number of arrests when some protestors were asked to "disassemble," and apparently did not do so upon command, and felt that their Constitutional rights were more "lawful" than an "unlawful" order by the federal police protecting the foreigners who called this meeting to begin with.

    AP Spins Another: G-20 Protestors Without Permits Labeled Anarchists? 2009

  • The culmination of this madness is the spread of a virus contracted on the surface of Mars that causes those infected with it to "disassemble," a deus ex machina akin to

    All Stories | The New York Observer 2010

  • An amazing demographic shift began with a plant to 'disassemble' hogs

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed Jeffrey Simpson 2010

  • An amazing demographic shift began with a plant to 'disassemble' hogs

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed Jeffrey Simpson 2010

  • An amazing demographic shift began with a plant to 'disassemble' hogs

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed Jeffrey Simpson 2010

  • An amazing demographic shift began with a plant to 'disassemble' hogs

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed Jeffrey Simpson 2010

  • After deranging the mind and disfiguring the face, the bug causes a victim's body to "disassemble" and its limbs to run amok.

    NYT > Home Page By Troy Patterson 2010

  • I wonder if there is a way to 'disassemble' the switch to see exactly how its soldered to the board or how the contacts work and maybe implement a slider switch like something I can pick up from RadioShack ..

    TabletPCBuzz - The Best Place to Learn about Tablet PCs 2009

  • This fact can cause some foods to "disassemble" when you try to pull them out at finish.

    Epinions Recent Content for Home 2009

  • He was a memento mori; all I had to do was melt him down or completely disassemble him.

    Crossed J.F. Lewis 2011

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