Emily Dickinson Lexicon
Definition for MU'TI-LATE
MUTE-NESSMU'TI-LA-TED, or MU'TI-LATE
MU'TI-LATE, v.t. [L. mutilo, probably from the root of meto, to cut off; Fr. mutiler; It. mutilare.]
- To cut off a limb or essential part of an animal body. To cut off the hand or foot is to mutilate the body or the person.
- To cut or break off, or otherwise separate any important part, as of a statue or building. – Encyc.
- To retrench, destroy or remove any material part, so as to render the thing imperfect; as, to mutilate the poems of Homer or the orations of Cicero. Among the mutilated poets of antiquity, there is none whose fragments are so beautiful as those of Sappho. – Addison.
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