castrate
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castrate¹
- /kæsˈtɹeɪt/ UK
- /ˈkæs.tɹeɪt/ US
Where it comes from
Likely from an unattested sense of Middle English castrat (“(adjective) castrated; (noun) a castrated animal”), substantivized borrowing of Latin castrātus, perfect passive participle of castrō (“to prune, amputate, castrate”), see -ate (noun-forming suffix)).
noun castrates
- A castrated man; a eunuch. The castrate voice had a strange power not duplicated by soprano or countertenor.
castrate²
- /ˈkæs.tɹeɪt/ UK
- /kæsˈtɹeɪt/ UK
- /ˈkæs.tɹeɪt/ US
Rhymes with -eɪt
Where it comes from
Borrowed from Latin castrātus, perfect passive participle of Latin castrō, see -ate (verb-forming suffix). Displaced native geld in its broader sense.
verb castrates · castrating · castrated
- To remove the testicles of a person or animal. If the priests of Diana of Ephesus castrated themselves and offered their genitals on the altar, it was because the phallus was the symbol of the dying body.
- To remove the ovaries and/or uterus of an animal.
- To take something from; to render imperfect or ineffectual. behold the Eunuch of castrated thought
