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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

demolish.

To destroy (buildings, etc.), especially in a planned or intentional fashion.

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/dɪˈmɒl.ɪʃ/
  1. To destroy (buildings, etc.), especially in a planned or intentional fashion.

    literally · transitive
    They demolished the old mill and put up four townhouses.
  2. To defeat, refute, discredit, or consume utterly (as a theory, belief or opponent).

    figuratively · transitive
  3. To devour; to eat up

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Attested since the 16th century; from Middle French demoliss-, the stem of some conjugated forms of the verb demolir (“to destroy”, “to tear down”), from Latin dēmōlior (“to tear down”). Displaced native Old English tōweorpan (literally “to throw apart”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.