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Dismember   Listen
verb
Dismember  v. t.  (past & past part. dismembered; pres. part. dismembering)  
1.
To tear limb from limb; to dilacerate; to disjoin member from member; to tear or cut in pieces; to break up. "Fowls obscene dismembered his remains." "A society lacerated and dismembered." "By whose hands the blow should be struck which would dismember that once mighty empire."
2.
To deprive of membership. (Obs.) "They were dismembered by vote of the house."
Synonyms: To disjoint; dislocate; dilacerate; mutilate; divide; sever.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dismember" Quotes from Famous Books



... they put their furs on, and his voice shook a trifle, "I can't ride in with everybody who has asked me unless you dismember me." ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss

... classes of Hindus, not only on account of his habits being abhorrent and abominable, but also because he is believed to have no humane or kindly feelings"; and further, "It is universally believed that Doms do not bury or burn their dead, but dismember the corpse at night like the inhabitants of Thibet, placing the fragments in a pot and sinking them in the nearest river or reservoir. This horrid idea probably originated from the old Hindu law, which compelled the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... what I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad—Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; and—Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as schoolboys do to bullies—Take ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... guess'd) the truth. For had the martial Menelaus found The ruffian breathing yet on Argive ground; Nor earth had bid his carcase from the skies, Nor Grecian virgins shriek'd his obsequies, But fowls obscene dismember'd his remains, And dogs had torn him on the naked plains. While us the works of bloody Mars employ'd, The wanton youth inglorious peace enjoy'd: He stretch'd at ease in Argos' calm recess (Whose stately steeds luxuriant pastures bless), With flattery's ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... evident and important, that the continent ran the risk of being ruined every day that she delayed it. There was reason to believe that Britain would endeavor to make an European matter of it, and, rather than lose the whole, would dismember it, like Poland, and dispose of her several claims to the highest bidder. Genoa, failing in her attempts to reduce Corsica, made a sale of it to the French, and such trafficks have been common in the old world. We had at that time no ambassador in any part of Europe, to ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... "if the anticipations therein expressed prove to be well founded, my interest in public affairs is gone forever. But is it not hard upon us while we are labouring, through good and evil report, to thwart the designs of those who would dismember the empire, that our adversaries should be informed that the difference between them and the prime minister of England is only one of time? If the British government has really come to the conclusion that we are a burden ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot

... the famous war not because, mad with love, he abandoned the command in the midst of the battle, but because his armies revolted and abandoned him when they understood what he had not dared declare to them openly: that he meant to dismember the Empire of Rome to create the new Empire of Alexandria. The future Augustus conquered at Actium without effort, merely because the national sentiment of the soldiery, outraged by the unforeseen revelation of Antony's treason, turned against the man who wanted to aggrandise Cleopatra ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero

... them, that he can bear all this, without a grimace, a spasm, or indication of suffering. In this case, as we have seen, he smokes, derides, menaces, sings, and shows his contempt, by calling them by the most reproachful of all epithets—old women. When he falls insensible, they scalp and dismember him, and the remainder of ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint

... less with Laurels Ashurs Brows adorn, That mangled Brave who with Tyres Thunder torn, Brought a dismember'd Load of Honour home, And lives to make both th'Earth and Seas ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.

... border of woodland, swamp, or hill. On the other hand, Wessex, Northumbria, and Mercia, with a vague and ill-defined internal border, had harder work to fight their way in against a united Welsh resistance; and it was only very slowly that they pushed across the central watershed, to dismember the unconquered remnant of the Britons at last into the three isolated bodies of Damnonia (Cornwall and Devon), Wales Proper, and Strathclyde. This is probably why the earliest settlements were made in these isolated coast regions, ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... belligerent' and contracting parties, and there never were greater than at that time. The House of Austria, in the war immediately preceding that treaty, intended to make itself absolute in the empire, and to overthrow the rights of the respective states of it. The view of France was to weaken and dismember the House of Austria to such a degree, as that it should no longer be a counterbalance to that of Bourbon. Sweden wanted possessions on the continent of Germany, not only to supply the necessities of its own poor and barren country, but likewise to hold ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... after him, snapping at his heels. Before he could climb out of reach he was grabbed by the ankle and pulled down. The wounded bear came jumping up the mountain and caught him by the shoulder. They pulled against each other as if to dismember him. His hip was dislocated and he suffered ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... conquered portions of Belgium and northern France in return for the captured German colonies in Africa and the Pacific Ocean, with the payment of indemnities to Germany, now it was plain that the nations of the Entente intended to wipe out utterly the German nation and dismember the empire of Austria-Hungary; and that since Germany had offered her enemies an honorable peace and they had refused, the only thing left for the central powers to do was to fight to the bitter end and use any means whatsoever to force ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet

... April, 1793, the representatives of England, Prussia, and Austria resolved to dismember France. The Prussians were to seize Alsace and Lorraine; the Austrians, Flanders and Artois; the English, Dunkirk. The Austrian ambassador proposed to crush the Revolution by terror, "by exterminating practically the whole of the party ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon

... association. This singular society is purely French, a creature of French virtues, and possibly of French defects. It cannot be imitated by the English. The roughness, the impatience, the more obvious selfishness, and even the more ardent friendships of the Anglo-Saxon, speedily dismember such a commonwealth. But this random gathering of young French painters, with neither apparatus nor parade of government, yet kept the life of the place upon a certain footing, insensibly imposed their etiquette upon the docile, and by caustic speech enforced their edicts against the unwelcome. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... are obliged, for their own security, to form an alliance with England; this leads him to break down all the old monarchies that are still intact, to conquer Naples, to mutilate Austria the first time, to dismember and cut up Prussia, to mutilate Austria the second time, to manufacture kingdoms for his brothers at Naples, in Holland and in Westphalia.—At this same date, all the ports of his empire are closed against the English, which leads him to close against them all the ports of the Continent, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... cut off, and that she should be compell'd to descend to the level of kingdoms and empires ordinarily great. There is certainly not one government in Europe but is now watching the war in this country, with the ardent prayer that the United States may be effectually split, crippled, and dismember'd by it. There is not one but would help toward that dismemberment, if it dared. I say such is the ardent wish to-day of England and of France, as governments, and of all the nations of Europe, as governments. I think indeed it is to-day the real, heartfelt wish ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... which, should it break out, may become general and be of long duration; that the war still continues between Spain and the independent governments, her late Provinces, in this hemisphere; that it is likewise menaced between Portugal and Brazil, in consequence of the attempt of the latter to dismember itself from the former, and that a system of piracy of great extent is maintained in the neighboring seas, which will require equal vigilance and decision to suppress it, the reasons for sustaining the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... surgeons who have seen much service, and have been promoted to high professional place for their scientific attainments, this Cuticle was an enthusiast in his calling. In private, he had once been heard to say, confidentially, that he would rather cut off a man's arm than dismember the wing of the most delicate pheasant. In particular, the department of Morbid Anatomy was his peculiar love; and in his state-room below he had a most unsightly collection of Parisian casts, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... they shall grow weary of the existing government they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it'—(after a brief consideration) I suppose that that's all right—but listen! 'or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.' ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell

... you to be neutral—I can deal with these Russians and Prussians single-handed. Metternich stated plainly that the time in which Austria could be neutral was past; that the situation of Europe at large must be considered. Napoleon insinuated that he would be happy to dismember Prussia, and give half her territories to Austria. Metternich replied that his government was resolved to be gained by no share in the spoils of others; that events had proved the impossibility of a steadfast ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... had been ordered to introduce into that settlement, the constitution prepared by Mr. Locke. This innovation was strenuously opposed; and the discontent it produced was increased by a rumour, which was not the less mischievous for being untrue, that the proprietors designed to dismember the province. There was also another cause which increased the ill humour pervading that small society. The proprietors attempted to stop the trade carried on in the vessels of New England, and the attempt produced the constant effect of such measures—much ill temper both on the part ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... due to the weakness and not to the policy of the imperial government. There was no attempt to form a British constitution, or weld British tribes into a nation; for Rome brought to birth no daughter states, lest she should dismember her all-embracing unity. So the nascent nations warred within and rent her; and when, enfeebled and distracted by the struggle, she relaxed her hold on Britain, she left it more cultivated, perhaps, but more enervated ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard

... and so compacted is the Church of Rome, as a visible and earthly body, with a past and future history. And with so singular a firmness and flexibility is her frame knit together, that none of her modern enemies can get any lasting hold on her, or dismember her or dislocate her limbs on the racks of ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock

... little resistance drove him in confusion from the field. The sudden turning of the tables dismayed Faulkner's men, and panic seizing them, they threw away every loose article of arms or clothing of which they could dismember themselves, and ran in the wildest disorder in a mad effort to escape. As the chase went on the panic increased, the clouds of dust from the road causing an intermingling of friend and foe. In a little while the affair grew most ludicrous, Faulkner's hatless and coatless ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... eighteenth century Turkey had been a prey to the political gangrene of which she is vainly trying to cure herself to-day, and which, before long, will dismember her in the sight of all Europe. Anarchy and disorder reigned from one end of the empire to the other. The Osmanli race, bred on conquest alone, proved good for nothing when conquest failed. It naturally therefore came to pass ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... Eaton was a firm patriot, and refused with horror to play the traitor. Wishing to make his true sentiments known, once for all, he gave this toast at a public banquet, in Burr's presence: "The United States—palsy to the brain that shall plot to dismember, and leprosy to the hand that will not draw ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... Institutions, belongs to the People who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their Constitutional right of amending it, or their Revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the National Constitution amended. While I make no recommendations of Amendments, I fully ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... States General at Tours. The three Estates were asked to give an opinion as to the power of the Crown to alienate Normandy, the step insisted upon by the Duke of Burgundy. Their reply was to the effect that the nation forbids the Crown to dismember the realm; they supported their opinion by liberal promises of help. Thus fortified by the sympathy of his people, Louis began to break up the coalition. He made terms with the Duc de Bourbon and the House of Anjou; his brother Charles was a cipher; ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre

... robbery. The great Merchant Nation, gaining foothold in the Orient, finds a continual necessity for extending its dominion by arms, and subjugates India. The great Royalties and Despotisms, without a plea, partition among themselves a Kingdom, dismember Poland, and prepare to wrangle over the dominions of the Crescent. To maintain the balance of power is a plea for the obliteration of States. Carthage, Genoa, and Venice, commercial Cities only, must acquire territory by force or fraud, and become States. Alexander ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... ambition, and the resentment of past injuries, involved Sparta in new wars. When her thirty years' truce with Mantine'a had expired, she compelled that city, which had formerly been an unwilling ally, to throw down her walls, and dismember her territory into the four or five villages out of which it had been formed. Each of these divisions was now left unfortified, and placed under a separate oligarchical government. Sparta did this under the pretext that the Mantine'ans had supplied one of her enemies with provisions during the ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... candles, perhaps it was only the agony from a death of pain, but the repulsive black face seemed to wear a scowl that said, "Haven't you yet done with the outcast, persecuted black man, but you must now haul him from his grave, and send even your women to dismember ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... sun's o'ercast with blood: fair day, adieu! Which is the side that I must go withal? I am with both: each army hath a hand; And in their rage, I having hold of both, They whirl asunder and dismember me. Husband, I cannot pray that thou mayst win; Uncle, I needs must pray that thou mayst lose; Father, I may not wish the fortune thine; Grandam, I will not wish thy wishes thrive: Whoever wins, on that side shall I lose; Assured ...
— King John • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... statue it is necessary first to make an exact clay model. This done, the usual Greek practice seems to have been to dismember the model and take a casting of each part separately. The several bronze pieces were then carefully united by rivets or solder, and small defects were repaired by the insertion of quadrangular patches ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... "The Henry Plot (as it was denominated) was clamoured through America as a crime of the deepest dye on the part of Great Britain, tending to disorganize the Government, to dismember the Union, and to destroy the independence of the States. The fictitious and exaggerated importance which the American Government affected to attach to this trivial matter had, however, some influence ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... did the old gentleman expect that he was educating a youth who should one day dismember the British Empire, and break his own heart, which truly came to pass; for on hearing that Washington had captured Cornwallis and all his army, he called out to his black servant, 'Come, Joe, carry me to my bed, for it is high time for ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... Vichyana. What further we may have to say hereafter, will be chiefly interesting to our medical friends, to whom the waters of Vichy are almost as little known as they are to the public at large. The name of the town seems to admit, like its waters, of analysis; and certain grave antiquaries dismember it accordingly into two Druidical words, "Gurch" and "I;" corresponding, they tell us, to our own words, "Power" and "Water;" which, an' it be so, we see not how they can derive Vichy from this source. Others, with more plausibility, hold ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... combatants of necessity hated each other? No more than the celebrated trained bands of literary sword-and-buckler men hate the adversaries whom they meet in the arena. They engage at the given signal; feint and parry; slash, poke, rip each other open, dismember limbs, and hew off noses: but in the way of business, and, I trust, with mutual private esteem. For instance, I salute the warriors of the Superfine Company with the honors due among warriors. Here's at you, Spartacus, my lad. A hit, I acknowledge. ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... its walls. But were this not so; did the embassy of Aurelian take us by surprise and unprepared; should a people that respects itself, and would win or keep the good opinion of mankind, tamely submit to requisitions like these? Are we to dismember our country at the behest of a stranger, of a foreigner, and a Roman? Do you feel that without a struggle first for freedom and independence, you could sink down into a mean tributary of all-ingulfing Rome, and lose the name of Palmyrene? ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... displeasure. They will be loyal whatever is said. Not so the defeated, irritated, angered, frenzied party.... Your case is quite like that of Jefferson. He brought the first Republican party into power against and over a party ready to resist and dismember the government. Partisan as he was, he sank the partisan in the patriot, in his inaugural address; and propitiated his adversaries by declaring, 'We are all Federalists; all Republicans.' I could wish that you would think it wise to follow this ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... that the doctrine of State suicide, as propounded in so many words, by its author, in the original resolutions offered in Congress, is equally repugnant to the Constitution and good sense. It is, in effect, revolutionary; for it would dismember the Union, by striking out of existence States as purely and completely sovereign within the sphere of their functions as the Nation itself. It is idle to deny that it thus recognizes and gives support to the doctrine ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... his second position, 'Nothing passes into nothing,' Lucretius points out to begin with that there is a law even in destruction; force is required to dissolve or dismember anything; were it otherwise the world would have disappeared long ago. Moreover, he points out that it is from the elements set free by decay and death that new things are built up; there is no waste, no visible lessening of the resources of nature, whether in the generations of living things, ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall

... was delivered by Sir Robert Peel, who said, he believed that no array of official documents, and no force of argument, could strengthen the conviction of the great majority of the house—a conviction that lay deeper than any argument could reach—that they would on no account consent to dismember the British empire. There were convictions connected with the feelings of the heart as well as with the faculties of the mind. Mr. Canning had said, "Repeal the union! re-enact the heptarchy!" The security of the empire depended ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... compromises in the shape of fixed annual tributes. At present the policy of the barbarians along the vast line of the northern frontier, was, to tease and irritate the provinces which they were not entirely able, or prudentially unwilling, to dismember. Yet, as the almost annual irruptions were at every instant ready to be converted into coup-de-mains upon Aquileia—upon Verona—or even upon Rome itself, unless vigorously curbed at the outset, —each emperor ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... This he proclaimed to be the sacred body, for the legend was that St. Quentin had been martyred by having nails driven into his head! Although it was quite evident to others that these were coffin nails, still St. Eloi insisted upon regarding his discovery as genuine, and they began diligently to dismember the remains for distribution among the churches. As they were pulling one of the teeth, a drop of blood was seen to follow it, which miracle was hailed by St. Eloi as the one proof wanting. Eloi had the genuine artistic temperament ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... cut up, carve, dissect, anatomize; dislimb[obs3]; take to pieces, pull to pieces, pick to pieces, tear to pieces; tear to tatters, tear piecemeal, tear limb from limb; divellicate[obs3]; skin &c. 226; disintegrate, dismember, disbranch[obs3], disband; disperse &c. 73; dislocate, disjoint; break up; mince; comminute &c. (pulverize) 330; apportion &c. 786. part, part company; separate, leave. Adj. disjoined &c. v.; discontinuous &c. 70; multipartite[obs3], abstract; disjunctive; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Kings of England lord it over France, humble her, dismember her, have themselves crowned at Paris. They lose the secret; ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... the Egyptian, and his eye flashed wrathfully. "What?—They dismember the divine person of the Saviour and attribute to it two distinct natures. And then!—All the Greeks settled here, and encouraged by the protection of the emperor, treated us, the owners of the land, like slaves, till your nation came to put an end to their ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the man, in transports that, in the brilliant light of the public square, gave to their faces expressions unsurpassed even in the shade of curtains and in the hollows of pillows. They were going to seize Colomban, to bite him, to strangle, dismember and rend him, when Maniflore, tall and dignified in her red tunic, stood forth, serene and terrible, confronting these furies who recoiled from before her in terror. Colomban seemed to be saved; his partisans succeeded in clearing a passage for him through ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... killed the last. Already several birds of prey were hovering about. I scared them off, however, by my shouts; and then passing the bridle of my horse round my arm, I began in a very unscientific way to dismember the noble beast I had killed. I did not like the employment; at the same time, it was necessary to secure the meat. I had been for some time thus employed, when I heard the sound of wings close above me, and looking up, saw, ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... Thereby hung the great, the unanswerable question: How was he going to spend his life as a married man? Was it probable that he would become a serious student, or even that he would study as much as heretofore? No foreseeing; the future must shape itself, even as the past had done. After all, why dismember his library for the sake of saving a few shillings on carriage? If he did not use ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... slaughter of animals, they proceeded to those of the slaughter of men, of gladiators. Nature has herself, I fear, imprinted in man a kind of instinct to inhumanity; nobody takes pleasure in seeing beasts play with and caress one another, but every one is delighted with seeing them dismember, and tear one another to pieces. And that I may not be laughed at for the sympathy I have with them, theology itself enjoins us some favour in their behalf; and considering that one and the same master has lodged ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... the Russians. Finding it impossible to gain her to his interests, like Saxony, by a great act of generosity, the next plan was to divide her; and yet, either from compassion, or the effect of Alexander's presence, he could not resolve to dismember her. This was a mistaken policy, like most of those where we stop half-way; and Napoleon was not long before he became sensible of it. When he exclaimed, therefore, "Is it possible that I have left this man so large a territory?" it is probable that he did not forgive Prussia the protection ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... number. It was agreed that if Belgium would consent to break from the Spanish yoke it was to be erected into a free state; if, on the contrary, it would not co-operate for its own freedom, France and Holland were to dismember, and to ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... from being impossible that the pretensions of the house of Bourbon may be revived, and that though no single prince of that family should attempt to mount the imperial throne, they may all conspire to dismember the empire into petty kingdoms, and free themselves from the dread of a formidable neighbour, by erecting a number of diminutive sovereigns, who may be always courting the assistance of their protectors, for the sake of harassing ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson

... delegated to them (as in the case of despotic governments,) or, 2. where it was expressly delegated; that neither of these delegations had been made to our General Government, and, therefore, that it had no right to dismember or alienate any portion of territory once ultimately consolidated with us; and that we could no more cede to the Indians than to the English or Spaniards, as it might, according to acknowledged principles, remain as irrevocably and eternally with the one as the other. But I ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson



Words linked to "Dismember" :   divide, discerp, part, separate, kill, take apart



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