demolish

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   To knock down or completely destroy a building or structure.

   They demolished the old factory to make room for new apartments.

2. 2
   verb

   To completely defeat an opponent or prove an argument wrong.

   The home team demolished the visitors by five goals.

3. 3
   verb

   To eat something quickly and completely.

   He was so hungry that he demolished the whole pizza in minutes.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Demolish, recorded from the mid-16th century, ultimately derives from Latin moles, ‘mass’. The same Latin word also gave mole in the sense of a massive pier, breakwater, or causeway.

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”).

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary