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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

denature.

To take away a natural characteristic or inherent property of (a thing or a person).

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/diːˈneɪtjə(ɹ)/Received-Pronunciation/diːˈneɪt͡ʃə(ɹ)/Received-Pronunciation/diːˈnɛː.t͡ʃɐ/Northern-England/diˈneɪ̯.t͡ʃəɹ/Canada, General-American
  1. To take away a natural characteristic or inherent property of (a thing or a person).

    transitive
  2. To add something to (alcohol) that makes it unsuitable for consumption but leaves it suitable for most other purposes.

    transitive
    While you cannot drink denatured alcohol, you can still use it to remove sticker glue from most surfaces.
  3. To alter its original form or state, especially of a protein, by heat, acidity etc.

    intransitive · transitive
  4. Of double-stranded DNA, specifically to split into two single strands.

    intransitive · transitive
  5. To combine fissile material with nonfissile material in order to prevent its use in an atomic weapon.

    transitive · usually
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from French dénaturer. By surface analysis, de- + nature.

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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.