Definitions

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

  • transitive verb To deprive of capability or effectiveness, especially to impair the physical abilities of.
  • transitive verb Law To render legally incapable of performing an act.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To render unable; deprive of ability, physical, mental, or legal; weaken or destroy the capability of; cripple or incapacitate: as, a ship is disabled by a storm or a battle; a race-horse is disabled by lameness; loss of memory disables a teacher.
  • To impair; diminish; impoverish.
  • To pronounce incapable; hence, to detract from; disparage; undervalue.
  • Synonyms To cripple, paralyze, enfeeble, unfit, disqualify.
  • Wanting ability; incompetent.

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

  • adjective obsolete Lacking ability; unable.
  • transitive verb To render unable or incapable; to destroy the force, vigor, or power of action of; to deprive of competent physical or intellectual power; to incapacitate; to disqualify; to make incompetent or unfit for service; to impair.
  • transitive verb (Law) To deprive of legal right or qualification; to render legally incapable.
  • transitive verb obsolete To deprive of that which gives value or estimation; to declare lacking in competency; to disparage; to undervalue.

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

  • verb transitive To render unable; to take away an ability of.
  • verb To impair the physical or mental abilities of; to cause a serious, permanent injury.
  • verb to deactivate a function of an electronical or mechanical device.

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

  • verb injure permanently
  • verb make unable to perform a certain action

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • At the moment we should operate under the assumption that the ship, while disable, is still manned to the brim by the roguish scum.

    Superhero Nation: how to write superhero novels and comic books » JM’s Review Forum 2009

  • But to jokingly compare his poor bowling game to an event for a disable is a rare slip for a president who deliberates over every word.

    CNN Transcript Mar 20, 2009 2009

  • By the time I got there, though, it seems that the 'custom text' feature was once again disable.

    Oh shucks. 2004

  • By the time I got there, though, it seems that the 'custom text' feature was once again disable.

    We interrupt your regularly scheduled panic attack 2004

  • By the time I got there, though, it seems that the 'custom text' feature was once again disable.

    Archive 2004-09-01 2004

  • By the time I got there, though, it seems that the 'custom text' feature was once again disable.

    Sometimes the first thought... 2004

  • By the time I got there, though, it seems that the 'custom text' feature was once again disable.

    A Don't Panic Pictoral... 2004

  • By the time I got there, though, it seems that the 'custom text' feature was once again disable.

    Primary Returns 2004

  • Click Yes on the pop-up dialog to labels disable auto fitting

    MSDN Blogs alexgor 2009

  • Second, comment out line "exec pppd call dsl-provider" in/etc/ppp/pppoe_on_boot, that is to say disable my previous "pppoe on boot" setting which is configured by pppoeconf.

    Planet Ubuntu 2009

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