sabotage

CEFRB2

/ˈsæ.bəˌtɑːʒ/

verb · noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
verb
To deliberately damage or obstruct something to prevent success.
02
noun
Deliberate damage or obstruction intended to prevent success.

Examples

Why did he dare sabotage the experiment?
Why do you think this could be sabotage?

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 4
Parts of speech: 2
Citations: 3

Deep Dive

verb

Extra meaning

To deliberately destroy or damage something in order to prevent it from being successful.

noun

Extra meaning

A deliberate action aimed at weakening someone (or something, a nation, etc) or preventing them from being successful, through subversion, obstruction, disruption, and/or destruction.

More examples

In context

Are you accusing Tom of sabotage?
The railway line had been sabotaged by enemy commandos.
Our plans were sabotaged.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The act of blank caused the factory's machines to break down mysteriously.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

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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Origin

verb

Unadapted borrowing from French sabotage.

Deep Dive

verb

noun

More examples

Quick test

The act of blank— caused the factory's machines to break down mysteriously.

Nearby

Origin

verb

The act of blank caused the factory's machines to break down mysteriously.