Entry Word: demolish

Function: verb

Meaning: 1 to destroy (as a building) completely by knocking down or breaking to pieces <they demolished the old warehouse to make room for the new shopping mall>

Synonyms raze, tear down

Related Words blow up, dynamite; abolish, annihilate, crack up, crush, dash, decimate, destroy, devastate, devour, dissolve, do in, eradicate, extirpate, finish, flatten, obliterate, overturn, pulverize, ravage, ruin, scourge, smash, total, unmake, waste, wipe out, wreck

Near Antonyms build, construct, erect, put up, raise; rebuild, renew, renovate, restore; create, fabricate, fashion, forge, form, make, manufacture, shape

2 to bring to a complete end the physical soundness, existence, or usefulness of <most of the buildings in the town had been demolished in the bombing raid> — see destroy 1
3 to cause to break open or into pieces by or as if by an explosive <the concrete wall was demolished by the powerful bomb> — see blast 1