as in crippling
to cause severe or permanent injury to
was lucky not to be mutilated in the car crash
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Recent Examples of mutilating
The Times reported that Benkired lured Lola to her apartment before raping her, mutilating her and eventually fatally suffocating her with duct tape.
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Liam Quinn, PEOPLE, 27 Oct. 2025
Koch was never convicted of mutilating the corpses of the people who were murdered in Buchenwald; though some gruesome items were discovered there, there was no proof that they were connected to her.
—Elizabeth Yuko, Rolling Stone, 8 Oct. 2025
According to the Statesman Journal, Brudos admitted to mutilating the bodies of his victims.
—Randall Colburn, Entertainment Weekly, 8 Oct. 2025
More than 3,000 Hamas fighters gunned down civilians, torturing and mutilating some of them in their own homes, still in their pajamas.
—Romina Ruiz-Goiriena, USA Today, 4 Oct. 2025
After a nearly two-week-long trial, a Milwaukee County jury found Anderson, a 34-year-old former bartender, guilty on all counts on June 6, including first-degree intentional homicide and mutilating a corpse, in connection to Robinson's killing.
—Drake Bentley, jsonline.com, 21 Sep. 2025
In 2013, 15-year-old Daniel Marsh was accused of killing and mutilating the bodies of an elderly couple living nearby his father in California.
—Toni Fitzgerald, Forbes.com, 20 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for mutilating
Verb
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Since then, they've been forced to work remotely — at a time when the government was doling out return-to-office mandates — preventing access to labs and crippling the center's mission of embedding NASA climate scientists within international academia.—
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On December 7, 1941, 353 Japanese aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor, killing 2,403 Americans and crippling much of the Pacific Fleet.—
Verb
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The only way to repair the rift and deal with the incapacitating grief is through art.—
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He is accused of slipping incapacitating drugs into victims’ food or drinks before assaulting them between 2021 and 2024.—
Verb
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The suspect, charged with murder and other crimes, allegedly shot at four people in separate vehicles in Prince George’s County, killing one and wounding two.—
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Faceworld members opened fire, killing Jordan and wounding another woman.—
Verb
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Police say a rock was thrown at a school bus on the New Jersey Turnpike on Wednesday, shattering a window and seriously injuring a young child.—
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On January 1, history repeated itself when a fire erupted at the Le Constellation nightclub in Switzerland, claiming 40 lives — more than half of them under the age of 18 — and injuring over 100 others.—
Verb
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The first and rarest category involved sotto voce confessions of personal tree-felling or maiming episodes.—
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In 1982, Bentley was convicted of attempting to murder his then-girlfriend and maiming her 5-year-old daughter, who was left permanently blind in one eye.—
Verb
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The suit seeks compensation, noting that Dinkins has suffered permanent, disabling injuries that will limit his future earning capacity.—
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The dark or shadow fleet is a clandestine network of older oil tankers working with sanctioned nations, such as Iran and Russia, that conceal their oil trips by disabling tracking, using fake identities, and other tactics.—
Verb
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One person was taken into custody after a fire ripped through a synagogue in Mississippi, heavily damaging the historic house of worship in what authorities say was an act of arson.—
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Freezing foods quickly helps preserve texture by preventing large ice crystals from damaging delicate cell walls.—
Verb
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The charges relate to his killing Scott Wonoski, 43, a fellow inmate at the Massachusetts Treatment Center in Bridgewater, in 2021.—
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Those on the right, determined to make the case that this was an officer killing in self-defense, should instead be beginning with this utter failure to protect the life of a civilian protester and de-escalate the situation through some means other than shooting a fellow American in the head.—
Cite this Entry
“Mutilating.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mutilating. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
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