Sabotage Meaning
/ˈsæ.bəˌtɑːʒ/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA deliberate action aimed at weakening someone (or something, a nation, etc) or preventing them from being successful, through subversion, obstruction, disruption, and/or destruction.
verbTo deliberately destroy or damage something in order to prevent it from being successful.
Sentence Examples
Why did he dare sabotage the experiment?
Are you accusing Tom of sabotage?
Why do you think this could be sabotage?
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
The act of ____ caused the factory's machines to break down mysteriously.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The workers threatened to ____ the machinery if their demands were not met by Friday.
Word Origin & History
Unadapted borrowing from French sabotage.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The Hedjaz Railway is best known for its connections to T. E. Lawrence, whose fame as "El Orens", the railway wrecker, spread quickly throughout Arabia. He arrived at Yenbo in December, 1916, and immediately started his campaign to sabotage the railway, but to keep it sufficiently in working order to allow supplies to reach Medina."
— 1956 March, R. C. Blaker, “The Hedjaz Railway”, in Railway Magazine, pages 166-167:
"Five minutes later, Southampton tried to mount their first attack, but Wickham sabotaged the move by tripping the rampaging Nathaniel Clyne, prompting the referee, Andre Marriner, to issue a yellow card. That was a lone blemish on an otherwise tidy start by Poyet’s team – until, that is, the 12th minute, when Vergini produced a candidate for the most ludicrous own goal in Premier League history."
— 2014 October 18, Paul Doyle, “Southampton hammer eight past hapless Sunderland in barmy encounter”, in The Guardian:
"The only amusing highlight was Gudgeon having managed to exploit U.S. codebreaking efforts to ambush and destroy the submarine I-173, albeit not for the lack of the Mark 14's trying to sabotage the effort, as the torpedo that had hit the sub had refused to detonate; it seemed, however, that the car-crash levels of kinetic energy involved in the dud simply ramming the sub had nonetheless done enough to fatally damage it."
— 2021 December 29, Drachinifel, 21:03 from the start, in The USN Pacific Submarine Campaign - The Dark Year (Dec'41 - Dec'42), archived from the original on 19 Jul 2022:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
The act of ____ caused the factory's machines to break down mysteriously.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The workers threatened to ____ the machinery if their demands were not met by Friday.