detach
Americanverb (used with object)
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to unfasten and separate; disengage; disunite.
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Military. to send away (a regiment, ship, etc.) on a special mission.
verb
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to disengage and separate or remove, as by pulling; unfasten; disconnect
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military to separate (a small unit) from a larger, esp for a special assignment
Other Word Forms
- detachability noun
- detachable adjective
- detachably adverb
- detacher noun
- nondetachability noun
- nondetachable adjective
- predetach verb (used with object)
- self-detaching adjective
- undetachable adjective
Etymology
Origin of detach
1470–80; < Middle French détacher, Old French destachier; dis- 1, attach
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
They were investigating why sea ice detached from a glacier years after a nearby ice shelf broke apart in 2002.
From Science Daily
To make way for a U.S. base, Britain detached the islands from the administrative control of Mauritius, which sits 1,300 miles away from the Chagos, in 1965, three years before Mauritius gained its independence.
The first is to detach with love — that is, politely and kindly, and with no explanations or blame.
From MarketWatch
By losing control, they exposed how fragile authorship becomes once ownership detaches.
In most cases the “mummy portraits”—as the paintings are called—came to be pried or detached from the full mummy by excavators, archaeologists or thieves.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
