unhinge
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Verb
[edit]unhinge (third-person singular simple present unhinges, present participle unhinging, simple past and past participle unhinged)
- To remove the leaf of a door or a window from its supporting hinges.
- 1988 December 4, Vivien Sharples, “Seattle Anti-Abortionists Thwarted”, in Gay Community News, volume 16, number 21, page 3:
- Operation Rescue eventually unhinged the locked gate, but were still unable to leave the parking lot due to the demonstrators' blocking the driveway.
- (zoology, of a joint) To dislocate.
- Many snakes can unhinge their jaw joints to swallow large prey.
- To mentally disturb.
- 1681, Joseph Glanvill, Saducismus Triumphatus: or, Full and Plain Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions[1]:
- sith the Soul of Samuel might indeed have terrified the poor Woman, and so unhinging her, that she had been fit for nothing after it, but not converted her, it is no wonder if he passed her by
- 2008, Peter Lorge, “The Great Ditch of China and the Song-Liao Border”, in Don J. Wyatt, editor, Battlefronts Real and Imagined: War, Border, and Identity in the Chinese Middle Period, New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, pages 59–74 at 67:
- Taizong's failure fooled no one. Indeed, one of Taizong's own sons may well have been unhinged by his father's obvious fratricidal and nepoticidal actions. These personal considerations directly affected Taizong's policy decisions, and thus warrant some discussion.
Translations
[edit]remove a leaf from its supporting hinges
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to mentally disturb
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