disassemble

verb dis·as·sem·ble \ ˌdis-ə-ˈsem-bəl \

Updated on: 21 Apr 2018

Definition of disassemble

transitive verb

: to take apart

disassemble a watch

intransitive verb

1 : to come apart

the frame disassembles into sections

2 : disperse, scatter

the crowd began to disassemble

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disassembly

play \-blē\ noun

See disassemble defined for English-language learners

See disassemble defined for kids

Examples of disassemble in a Sentence

The bookshelf disassembles for easy storage.
they had to disassemble the television set in order to replace the wiring

Recent Examples of disassemble from the Web

Its vast bureaucracies were disassembled, its armies were for the most part demobilized, and its profusion of factories were promptly converted to civilian use.

— maya dukmasova, Chicago Reader, "Archive Dive / History / News On winning wars and losing memories," 18 Apr. 2018
The 18-year-old Clark had experience disassembling Xbox games—reverse-engineering their code from machine language into a programming language.

— brendan i. koerner, WIRED, "The Young and the Reckless," 17 Apr. 2018
Officials say the monument needs to be disassembled and repaired.

— scott huddleston, San Antonio Express-News, "‘Alamo Roadshow’ going statewide," 5 Apr. 2018
Together, the two men did much to scramble, disassemble and decontextualize the melodic orthodoxies of hard bop.

— morgan enos, Billboard, "Buell Neidlinger Dies at 83: Bassist Was the Man Behind the Curtain of These 5 Essential Songs," 26 Mar. 2018
The other reason for disassembling the memorials now, Parkland commissioner Ken Cutler added, is to clear space for a March for Our Lives rally, scheduled for March 24 at Pine Trails Park.

— phillip valys, Sun-Sentinel.com, "Volunteers preserve Parkland shrines with 'utmost care'," 16 Mar. 2018
As is always the case with Target Margin — which has devoted earlier seasons to disassembling and reconstructing Chekhov, Eugene O’Neill, Gertrude Stein and Yiddish theater — telling tales is a communal enterprise.

— ben brantley, New York Times, "Review: Reliving Those Arabian Nights in ‘Pay No Attention to the Girl’," 2 Apr. 2018
The event, wherein a 70,000-person temporary city is erected in a week and disassembled faster, is so singular that attempts to recreate it at other times of the year have fallen flat.

— james tarmy, Bloomberg.com, "The Smithsonian’s Burning Man Art Show Is Actually Quite Good," 30 Mar. 2018
Volunteer Iris Diaz, meanwhile, snapped images on her smartphone at each makeshift memorial, saving for posterity how each shine looked before it was disassembled.

— phillip valys, Sun-Sentinel.com, "50 volunteers dismantle Stoneman Douglas memorial for preservation," 28 Mar. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'disassemble.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.