disintegrate Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb break into parts or components or lose cohesion or unity
    • The material disintegrated
    • the group disintegrated after the leader died
  2. verb cause to undergo fission or lose particles
  3. verb lose a stored charge, magnetic flux, or current
    decompose; decay.
    • the particles disintegrated during the nuclear fission process

WordNet

Dis*in"te*grate transitive verb
Etymology
L. dis- + integratus, p. p. of integrare to renew, repair, fr. integer entire, whole. See Integer.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Disintegrated; present participle & verbal noun Disintegrating
Definitions
  1. To separate into integrant parts; to reduce to fragments or to powder; to break up, or cause to fall to pieces, as a rock, by blows of a hammer, frost, rain, and other mechanical or atmospheric influences.
    Marlites are not disintegrated by exposure to the atmosphere, at least in six years. Kirwan.
Dis*in"te*grate intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To decompose into integrant parts; as, chalk rapidly disintegrates.

Webster 1913