Disintegration
noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A process by which anything disintegrates. countable, uncountable
"A Pan American World Airways, Inc., B-707-321B, N761PA, experienced an explosive disintegration of the third stage turbine disk of the No. 4 engine at approximately 1410 P.d.t, June 28, 1965. The accident occurred shortly after takeoff from San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, California, at an altitude of about 800 feet above the ground. Disintegration of the turbine disk was followed by a fire in the No. 4 engine area and an explosion in the outboard reserve fuel tank. The No. 4 engine and approximately 25 feet of the right outer wing separated from the aircraft."
- 2 total destruction wordnet
- 3 The condition of anything which has disintegrated. countable, uncountable
- 4 the spontaneous disintegration of a radioactive substance along with the emission of ionizing radiation wordnet
- 5 The wearing away or falling to pieces of rocks or strata, produced by atmospheric action, frost, ice, etc. countable, uncountable
Show 5 more definitions
- 6 separation into component parts wordnet
- 7 The process of radioactive decay. countable, uncountable
- 8 in a decomposed state wordnet
- 9 The process of radioactive decay.; The radioactive decay of a single atom. countable, uncountable
"The sample exhibited an activity of three disintegrations per second."
- 10 a loss (or serious disruption) of organization in some system wordnet
Example
More examples"We see the crumbling of the nation, the breaking up and disintegration, until the only suitable picture is that of the valley of dry bones, very many and much scattered, unrelated, unarticulated, disintegrated."
Etymology
From disintegrate + -ion or dis- + integration.
Related phrases
More for "disintegration"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.