pulverating

Verb

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

1. (transitive) To beat or reduce to powder or dust; to pulverise.
   • 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.1657, Jean de Renou, A Medicinal Dispensatory, page 687
2. (ambitransitive) To break up soil or organic matter into a fine, powdery texture, often by means of a special plow.
   • 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...1856, “Deep Cultivation— At home and Abroad”, in British Farmer's Magazine, volume 77, page 536
3. (figuratively, transitive) To crush or subdue; to overwhelm.
   • 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».1936, Boletim geral das colónias - Issues 127-132, page 257
4. (intransitive) To take a dust bath.
   • 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.1829, Georges Cuvier, The animal kingdom - Volume 8, page 191
5. To be powdery or granular.
   • Considerably quantities of pulverating feldspar are found on the rising ground, washed by the rains, near the Guapo mouth and on its left banks.1836, Robert Montgomery Martin, History of the West Indies, page 185

See all 7 meanings of pulverate