Meaning

A deliberate action aimed at weakening someone (or something, a nation, etc) or preventing them from being successful, through subversion, obstruction, disruption, and/or destruction..

Definitions by Sense

1. A deliberate action aimed at weakening someone (or something, a nation, etc) or preventing them from being successful, through subversion, obstruction, disruption, and/or destruction.
2. To deliberately destroy or damage something in order to prevent it from being successful.

Example Sentences

The railway line had been sabotaged by enemy commandos.

Our plans were sabotaged.

The Hedjaz Railway is best known for its connections to T. E. Lawrence, whose fame as "El Orens", the railway wrecker, spread quickly throughout Arabia. He arrived at Yenbo in December, 1916, and immediately started his campaign to sabotage the railway, but to keep it sufficiently in working order to allow supplies to reach Medina.

Five minutes later, Southampton tried to mount their first attack, but Wickham sabotaged the move by tripping the rampaging Nathaniel Clyne, prompting the referee, Andre Marriner, to issue a yellow card. That was a lone blemish on an otherwise tidy start by Poyet’s team – until, that is, the 12th minute, when Vergini produced a candidate for the most ludicrous own goal in Premier League history.

The only amusing highlight was Gudgeon having managed to exploit U.S. codebreaking efforts to ambush and destroy the submarine I-173, albeit not for the lack of the Mark 14's trying to sabotage the effort, as the torpedo that had hit the sub had refused to detonate; it seemed, however, that the car-crash levels of kinetic energy involved in the dud simply ramming the sub had nonetheless done enough to fatally damage it.

Word Forms

• sabotages
• sabotaging
• sabotaged

Synonyms for sabotage

Related Words

When Should You Use Sabotage?

Use sabotage when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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