MEANING
To cut open a person's or animal's abdomen and remove the intestines.
Use it for
Abdominal mutilation; aftermath of predation; exceptionally violent testimonyMake a specific bodily violation explicit; avoid piling on redundant gore adjectives.
Words that belong together
- disembowel a victim
- disemboweled carcass
- brutally disembowel
On the page
Something had disemboweled the boar beside the road.
The witness refused to describe how the attacker disemboweled his victims.
In the mural, a bird disembowels a giant chained to the rock.
Nearby words
Related words
Word forms
- Base
- disembowel / disembowels
- Past tense
- disemboweled
- Past participle
- disemboweled
- Present participle
- disemboweling
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- disembowel / disembowels
- Present continuous
- am/is/are disemboweling
- Present perfect
- have/has disemboweled
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been disemboweling
- Past
- disemboweled
- Past continuous
- was/were disemboweling
- Past perfect
- had disemboweled
- Past perfect continuous
- had been disemboweling
- Future
- will disembowel / disembowels
- Future continuous
- will be disemboweling
- Future perfect
- will have disemboweled
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been disemboweling
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
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Usage notes
Primary category: horror. Bluntly graphic; centered on the bowels rather than every internal organ. Do not use for an ordinary shallow abdominal cut. Verb [base, third-person present, past, past participle, -ing]: disembowel, disembowels, disemboweled, disemboweled, disemboweling. Derived/related family (not inflections): disembowelment (noun). British past/past participle: disembowelled; -ing: disembowelling.
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