demolish
/dɪˈmɒlɪʃ
/- The plans comprise demolishing the pub and building seven three-bedroom houses, a four-storey block of eight, two-bedroom flats and a two-storey block with a flat and car park.
- People living in Semington have given their support to a campaign to keep the village post office open, despite a planning application to demolish the building that houses it.
- There are plans to demolish the Cathedral College buildings and rebuild a £15 million building with a performing arts centre which would open from September 2005.
Synonyms
- The statistics are shocking - and they demolish any arguments put forward by the cynical pro-smoking lobby.
- They must demolish an argument in court, and demonstrate to the audience - sorry, that should read ‘jury’ - that they have done so.
- It completely demolishes the arguments used in favour of culling birds of prey.
Synonyms
- But defying team orders, Cunego demolished his team-mate on the road with a series of sensational stage rides and cruised to victory.
- Further to that, was Kilkenny's ‘senior’ team not demolished by Kildare in the junior championship?
- On Friday, the youth team was demolished 8-0 by the Czech Republic in Teplitze.
- Back at the ranch Bobby Joe was cooking up a feast of chilly dogs and all the trimmings and on return the golfers proceeded to demolish the food.
- In no time we all filled our plates and demolished the food which was not bad for home cooking.
- Not the mountainous dish I had anticipated, but they demolished the curry with enthusiasm, and felt pleasantly full afterwards.
Derivatives
demolisher
- And the demolishers have put up a small hand-written sign saying: ‘Windows, doors for sale’.
- He did much to rescue Keighley's architectural heritage which was disappearing under the demolisher's hammer.
- One of East London's most beautiful old buildings, the cream-coloured Barclays Bank on the corner of Oxford and Union Streets, will soon fall to the demolishers ' quick and ruthless tools.
Origin
Mid 16th century: from French démoliss-, lengthened stem of démolir, from Latin demoliri, from de- (expressing reversal) + moliri 'construct' (from moles 'mass').
mole from Old English:
English has several unrelated words spelled mole. The oldest refers to a small blemish on the skin; in Old English this meant ‘a discoloured spot on cloth’. Next to appear was the mole that now means ‘a structure serving as a pier, breakwater, or causeway’, which goes back to Latin moles ‘mass’ (the earliest sense in English) which also lies behind demolish (mid 16th century). The mole that is a burrowing animal stayed underground until the later Middle Ages, and went under other names before then—in Old English it was a want, and then also a mouldwarp. The novels of John le Carré popularized the term mole for a spy who gradually achieves an important position within the security defences of a country: it first appeared in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in 1974. The world of espionage seems to have adopted the use from le Carré, rather than vice versa. See also mountain