pulverate

English

Etymology

From Latin pulveratus, past participle of pulverare (“to pulverize”). See pulverize.

Verb

pulverate (third-person singular simple present pulverates, present participle pulverating, simple past and past participle pulverated)

(transitive) To beat or reduce to powder or dust; to pulverise.
- 1657, Jean de Renou, A Medicinal Dispensatory, page 687:
  Pulverate and mix them with Turpentine; then put them in a glass Alembick, and adde to them Camphyr, and Amber-grise, of each 3 ij.
- 1876, Compilation of the divers regulations bearing upon the importation of free labourers into the colony of Surinam, volume 2, page 45:
  Take of camphora 12 grains, pulverate it with a few drops of spir. vin. rect., add to it sulph. chin. 1 scruple, pulvis doveri 1/2 dram, mix and divide it into 9 doses, write on it: every 2 hours 1 dose.
- 1912 March 9, W. T. Lalonde, “Traction Engines on Roads”, in The Autocar, volume 28, number 855, page 456:
  It has rendered a service to viatecture which is far better than to pulverate and lift the road into clouds of dust, white-washing our countryside, and making its appearance hideous.
- 2024, William C. Gault, Title Fight, page 4:
  "I've been thinking,” Alix said slowly, “that we fight man's wars and pulverate his garbage and dehydrate his sewerage, but we're not citizens. Why, Manny?"
(transitive, intransitive, agriculture) To break up soil or organic matter into a fine, powdery texture, often by means of a special plow.
- 1856, “Deep Cultivation— At home and Abroad”, in British Farmer's Magazine, volume 77, page 536:
  Have not we all seen the changed texture and productive quality of a weathered subsoil; seen the sterile clay from the deep drain moulder into manageable and wholesome soil under the culture of a single wintering: reminding us of the saying of Dr. Clarke, that "the frost is God's plough, which he drives through every inch of ground," pulverating and fructifying all ?
- 1928, Farm Machinery and Hardware, page 27:
  […] shows a field of standing corn stalks being "pulverated" into a finished seedbed in one operation.
- 1929, Farm Equipment Red Book - Volumes 14-15, page 167:
  Pulverating tough sod — making a finished seedbed, ready for planting, in one operation.
- 1932, S. H. McCrory, Report of the Chief of the Bureau of Agricultural Engineering, page 13:
  Plowing cost less than pulverating.
- 2021, William Shurtleff, Akiko Aoyagi, History of Soybeans and the Great Agricultural Revolution (1874-2021), page 315:
  Judging from appearances, the plot which had been pulverated (plowed with a pulverator plow on March 17) and drilled immediately and the plot which had been pulverated and disked once were best.
(transitive, figurative) To crush or subdue; to overwhelm.
- 1936, Boletim geral das colónias - Issues 127-132, page 257:
  This subordination of the life to the ideal constitutes the vigorous foundation of his mannish personality. Mousinho's pulverating vocation can be summed up in the following word of immense meaning : «Serving».
- 2009, David Nadelberg, “Summer Poison”, in Mortified: Love Is a Battlefield, page 121:
  Old sleeping bag, cold floor, pulverated heart.
(intransitive, of birds) To take a dust bath.
- 1829, Georges Cuvier, The animal kingdom - Volume 8, page 191:
  If the cock be observed to scrape straw together, and rub himself in it, it is no more than what cocks and hens continually do, in heaps of dust, &c., when they have no thought of incubation, but merely from their pulverating instinct.
- 1833, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Animals in the Collection of the Zoological Society of Doublin, page 118:
  It is thus we can account for the fact, that whilst these are the most pulverating of birds, continually filling their feathers with dry earth, in order to destroy the vermin which annoy them, those quadrupends similarly roll themselves in the dust, for the sake of ridding themselves of similar enemies picked up in the same situations.
- 1836, Oliver Goldsmith, History of the earth and animated nature, page 256:
  All larks are pulverating birds; but this one is so particularly attached to powdering itself with dust, that, on being supplied with some in a state of captivity, it will immediately testify its joy by a little soft cry, frequently repeated, and by precipitate movements of the wings, and bristling of all the feathers.
To be powdery or granular.
- 1836, Robert Montgomery Martin, History of the West Indies, page 185:
  Considerably quantities of pulverating feldspar are found on the rising ground, washed by the rains, near the Guapo mouth and on its left banks.
- 1885, ‎George Albert Boulenger, Catalogue of the Lizards in the British Museum, page 241:
  Coppery grey above, uniform or with three or five longitudinal series of blackish dots or elongate quadrangular spots; lower surfaces more or less marbled or pulverated with grey.
- 1940, Walter Bryan Jones, Bauxite Deposits of Alabama, page 82:
  bluish argillaceious shale with irregularly sandy, friable, or semi-pulverated strata.

Noun

pulverate (plural pulverates)

A powdered preparation of some substance.
- 1960, Abstracts of Soviet Medicine: Clinical medicine, page 1256:
  From 1957, aerial dusting was widely applied, water reservoirs were treated with 12% gammexane (hexachlorocyclohexane) pulverate and large areas were smoked with NBC smoke generators.
- 1972, Allan Kay Smith, ‎Sidney Joseph Circle, Soybeans: Chemistry and Technology: Proteins, page 310:
  Soy flour, its defatted form and except for its fiber content, has more resemblance in physical and chemical properties to nonfat dry milk solids, and more properly might be called "defatted soy solids," or "soy powder," or "soy pulverate;" however, the defatted soy flour has nearly 20% more protein than the nonfat milk solids .
- 1984, National Lampoon - Volume 2, Issues 66-77:
  His instinct was sure: anchoring on his left foot and balancing poised over the talclike pulverate, testingly he put his right foot in.
- 2020, Allister Vale, ‎John Scadding, ‎Randolph Churchill, Winston Churchill's Illnesses, 1886–1965:
  Although we know that digitalis leaf was prescribed by Bedford, we do not know which of the two most likely preparations available (digitalis folia BP/ digitalis USP; digitalis pulverate BP and USP) on the market were given as Moran obtained supplies from the US Army in Tunis.

Adjective

pulverate (comparative more pulverate, superlative most pulverate)

Having a powdery or granular texture;
- 1878 March, Prof. Hazslinszky, “On Geaster Orientalis”, in Grevillea, number 39, page 108:
  interior tube extends until its diameter attains the size of the interior peridium . It is constant yellowish white , pulverate .
- 1915, Cornelis Rugier Willem Karel Alderwerelt van Rosenburgh, Malayan Fern Allies, page 168:
  of the lower plane suberect, imbricate, ovate, acuminate, keeled, piloso-denticulate; macrospores whitish with yellow contents, pulverate, soon smooth;
- 2016, Francis Stevens, “Elf Trap”, in Nightmares! And other stories, page 56:
  Have recorded over a dozen specimens in which the macronucleus is unquestionably double. Not lobed, not pulverate, as in Oxytricha, but double!