Make Your Point > Archived Issues > EVISCERATE

Send Make Your Point issues straight to your inbox.

connect today's word to others: If you crack open our verb eviscerate and pull out the noun viscera--ew--you can add one letter to turn that into an adjective that means "involving gut feelings rather than rational thought:" viscera_. When you've eviscerated something, you've gutted it: you've taken out its heart, you've debilitated it, devitalized it, h____ung it. (To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.) make your point with... "EVISCERATE" The viscera (VISS er uh) are the guts: the internal organs of the body's trunk, specifically the heart, lungs, stomach, and so on. To eviscerate a person or an animal is to take out the viscera: to remove the internal organs. Although you can talk literally about evisceration, let's not! Here are the figurative meanings.  First, to eviscerate things can mean to ruin them by taking away their most important part(s)--as if you're cutting out their vital organs. Second, to eviscerate people or things can mean to insult them extremely harshly, or to disturb them extremely deeply--again, as if you're cutting out their vital organs. Pronunciation: ih VISS er ate Part of speech: Verb, the transitive kind: "they eviscerated those laws," "this review eviscerates the play." Other forms: eviscerated, eviscerating, evisceration, eviscerator(s) How to use it: Pick the harsh, emphatic word "eviscerate" when you need to startle your audience with a gory image--or when you need serious exaggeration. When you're using the first figurative meaning of "eviscerate" ("to destroy as if by ripping out the guts"), talk about people, actions, decisions, and events that eviscerate laws, powers, budgets, resources, reputations, norms, traditions, protections, businesses, industries, political parties, etc. For example: "Funding cuts eviscerated the program." And when you're using the second meaning ("to destroy emotionally, or to destroy with words, as if by ripping out the guts"), talk about people and statements that eviscerate ideas, things, and other people. "Critics eviscerated the movie." "They eviscerated him for his racist comments." "The scene eviscerated me; I sobbed like a baby." Occasionally we describe something as eviscerated of its parts: "a country eviscerated of its ideals," "like a rag doll suddenly eviscerated of stuffing (the Los Angeles Times)." examples: American shopping malls are dying, and the remaining ones limp along, eviscerated of their best stores, their vibrancy, and their crowds. "[The proposed changes to the law] would eviscerate crucial protections for species that are already on the verge of vanishing forever."    — Noah Greenwald, The Seattle Times, 24 July 2018 study it: Explain the meaning of "eviscerate" without saying "gut" or "tear to shreds." try it out: Think of something that disturbed you profoundly: maybe an event or an experience, or a particular book, show, film, or article. Fill in the blank: "_____ is more than gut-wrenching; it's eviscerating." Example: "His account of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is more than gut-wrenching; it's eviscerating." before you review, play: Spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—let your working memory empty out first. Tidbits and Titles! I provide the tidbits; you provide the title. From our previous issue: Here's a quote from a book: "If time travel is possible, where are the tourists from the future?" And here are some terms and phrases that often appear in that book: antiparticles, big bang singularity, complete unified theory, distance, Einstein, event horizon, galaxies, infinite, mass, Newton, planets, space-time, wormhole. What's the book's title? Answer: A Brief History of Time. Try this today: Here's a quote from a book: "We would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright." And here are some terms and phrases that often appear in that book: Bel Esprit, bottle, cafe, D. H. Lawrence, drank, drink, drunk, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, mountains, night, novel, paintings, story, train, winter, worry. What's the book's title? review today's word: 1. A near opposite of EVISCERATE is A. ANIMATE. B. ENTANGLE. C. MISCONSTRUE. 2. The sonnet's translation into modern English is easy to read, but it's a _____ version, eviscerated of its _____. A. clunky .. ugly, patternless lines B. hazy .. old-fashioned phrases C. lifeless .. vigor and beauty Answers are below. a final word: Make Your Point is crafted with love and brought to you each weekday morning by Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From Liesl's blog:    36 ways to study words.    Why we forget words, & how to remember them.    How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes. Answers to review questions: 1. A 2. C