dismantle

From Middle French desmanteler, itself from des- (“dis-”), mantel (“coat”) + -er (verbal suffix).

• IPA^(key): /dɪsˈmæntəl/
• (UK) IPA^(key): [dɪsˈmæntʰəɫ]
• (Cockney) IPA^(key): [dɪsˈmænʔəɫ]
• (US) IPA^(key): [dɪsˈmæ̃nɾɫ̩], [dɪsˈmæ̃nɫ̩]
• Rhymes: -æntəl

dismantle (third-person singular simple present dismantles, present participle dismantling, simple past and past participle dismantled)

1. (transitive, originally) To divest, strip of dress or covering.
   • c. 1603–1606, [William Shakespeare], […] His True Chronicle Historie of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters. […] (First Quarto), London: Printed for Nathaniel Butter, […], published 1608, OCLC 54196469, [Act I, scene i]:

     This is most ſtrange, that ſhe, who even but now / Was your beſt object, the argument of your praiſe, / Balme of your age, moſt beſt, moſt deereſt, / Should in this trice of time commit a thing / So monſtrous, to diſmantell ſo many foulds of fauour, […]

2. (transitive) To remove fittings or furnishings from.
3. (transitive) To take apart; to disassemble; to take to pieces.
   • 2013 May 17, George Monbiot, “Money just makes the rich suffer”, in The Guardian Weekly‎, volume 188, number 23, page 19:

     In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. The welfare state is dismantled. Essential public services are cut so that the rich may pay less tax. […]

• dismantlement

• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967

• dentalism