cannibalized

past tense of cannibalize
as in used
to remove parts from a machine, car, etc., to repair or build another one He cannibalized one washing machine to fix another. Many parts of the engine were cannibalized from older cars.

Related Words

Relevance

Dissimilar Words

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of cannibalized But the rise of the iPhone and the advent of music streaming subscription services (including Apple Music) cannibalized iPod sales. — Eric Griffith, PC Magazine, 23 Oct. 2026 The smaller convenience-centric store cannibalized online sales by a similar amount but generated no significant increase in total net revenue. — Ayşe Çetinel, Harvard Business Review, 18 Aug. 2026 These factors resulted in persistent, high operating costs that cannibalized the budget for modernization. — Roshan Kumar Shetty, Forbes.com, 17 July 2026 That Montreal had so much firepower at the top of the lineup, led by 2025 MVP Marie-Philip Poulin, Laura Stacey and Abby Roque, likely cannibalized some of Desbiens’ MVP case. — Hailey Salvian, New York Times, 16 June 2026 Analysts caution, however, that many of these vehicles are believed to be in storage, maintained at low readiness or cannibalized for parts. — Antonio María Delgado, Miami Herald, 28 May 2026 Astronomers watched as jets blasting from a black hole cannibalized a blue supergiant companion star. — Robert Lea, Space.com, 21 Apr. 2026 No small wonder that Scorcese self-cannibalized the move in several subsequent projects. — Literary Hub, 15 Apr. 2026 SaaS profit margins may compress and consolidation may follow, but not because AI cannibalized the industry, Kahn explains. — Sheryl Estrada, Fortune, 6 Apr. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for cannibalized
Verb
  • Fittingly, the hotel takes great care to disrupt its surroundings as little as possible; a geothermal well services the property’s heating and cooling, and plants that draw mosquito-eating birds are used in place of pesticides.
    — Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 31 Oct. 2026
  • The team then used in-situ polymerization to turn the mixture into a more robust polymer matrix.
    — Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 31 Oct. 2026
Verb
  • Some in the room thought the video message, which made no specific mention of the Amarillo Democrats, was recycled from earlier this year.
    — Jesús Rodríguez, New Yorker, 27 Oct. 2026
  • In February, Primark launched a five-piece denim collection made with fabrics that contain a minimum of 20 percent recycled denim.
    — Angela Velasquez, Footwear News, 27 Oct. 2026

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Cannibalized.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cannibalized. Accessed 3 Nov. 2026.

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

More from Merriam-Webster