disintegrate

Verb

disintegrate (third-person singular simple present disintegrates, present participle disintegrating, simple past and past participle disintegrated)

1. (transitive) To undo the integrity of; to break into parts.
   • Marlites […] are not disintegrated by exposure to the atmosphere, at least in six years.1784, Richard Kirwan, Elements of Mineralogy
   1. (transitive) To cause to break up into infinitesimal parts through the use of a disintegrator.
      • There is a Latvian gentleman named Theodore Nemor living at White Friars Mansions, Hampstead, who claims to have invented a machine of a most extraordinary character which is capable of disintegrating any object placed within its sphere of influence.1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Disintegration Machine
2. (intransitive) To fall apart; to break up into parts.
   • Hence they are eloquent, not of the present, disintegrating society and psyche, but of the unquenched source through which society is reborn.1968, Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 2nd edition, London: Fontana Press, published 1993, page 20
   • But Schneider has wantonly misstaged Lucky's monologue: instead of a recitation by rote of a travestied history of Western philosophy and religion that gradually disintegrates into chaos, we get a choppy set of starts and stops, as of a jalopy that cannot get into proper gear.1971 March 1, John Simon, “The Sorcerer and His Apprentices”, in New York Magazine, volume 4, number 9, page 58