mutilation

nounC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,528 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: mutilations

Mutilation is violent damage that hacks off or disfigures part of a body. Genital mutilation, the mutilation of the statue, escape without mutilation.

It implies cruelty rather than surgery, which is the whole force of the word: a surgeon amputates and an attacker mutilates. Female genital mutilation is the standard international term for a practice outlawed in most countries.

Definitions of mutilation

1nounmutilationViolent damage that hacks off or disfigures part of a body or an object.C1
“Vandals were blamed for the mutilation of the statues in the park, which lost their heads and hands.”

mutilation is a damage.

Where it comes from

Latin mutilatio comes from mutilare, to cut off, from mutilus, maimed.

Latin
mutilatio
English, today
mutilation

Latin mutilatio; compare French mutilation.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

mutilation in the wild

Other terms such as cutting, self-abuse, self-injury, and self-mutilation have been used for any self-harming behavior regardless of suicidal intent.
Self-harm
The World Health Organization refers to the procedure as Type III female genital mutilation.
Infibulation
In that era, mutilations were the subject of multiple independent investigations in the United States.
Cattle mutilation
Gishiri or gishiri cutting is a form of female genital mutilation performed commonly by the Hausa-Fulani people of northern Nigeria and southern Niger.
Gishiri cutting
Issues impacting Women in Mauritanian society include female genital mutilation, child marriage, and polygamy.
Women in Mauritania

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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