Meaning & use
disarm
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Meanings
verbtransitive
To take weapons away from a person or group.
Grammar: Takes an object: police disarmed the suspect.
Patterns
- disarm someone
Officers disarmed the man and handcuffed him.
The peacekeepers disarmed the rebels before the talks.
A guard quickly disarmed the intruder.
verbtransitivefigurative
To make someone feel less angry, doubtful or suspicious, usually through charm or honesty.
Grammar: The object is a person, and the cause is often a smile or a remark: her humor disarmed him.
Patterns
- disarm someone with something
Her warm smile disarmed even the harshest critic.
He disarmed the angry customer with a sincere apology.
The child's honesty disarmed her teacher.
verbtransitive
To make a bomb or other explosive device safe so that it cannot go off.
Grammar: The object is the device: disarm a mine.
Patterns
- disarm a bomb
Experts disarmed the old shell found on the beach.
The team disarmed the bomb with seconds to spare.
The bomb squad disarmed the device before the crowd returned.
verbintransitive
Of a country, to reduce or give up its military forces and weapons.
Grammar: No object: the two nations agreed to disarm.
Patterns
- disarm completely
Both nations agreed to disarm after the treaty.
The group refused to disarm until its demands were met.
Some people think a country should never fully disarm.
Word forms
| third person singular | disarms |
|---|---|
| past tense | disarmed |
| past participle | disarmed |
| -ing form | disarming |
Common combinations
- disarm a bomb
- The expert disarmed the bomb safely.
- disarm the opposition
- His humor disarmed the opposition.
- disarm completely
- The militia agreed to disarm completely.
- disarm a suspect
- Police disarmed the suspect without a struggle.
- disarm with a smile
- She disarmed him with a smile.
Synonyms and how they differ
- defuse
- Defuse fits bombs and tense situations alike, while disarm also covers taking weapons from people.
- win over
- Win over means to persuade someone to your side, whereas disarm only removes their suspicion or hostility.
- charm
- Charm describes the pleasing effect itself, while disarm stresses that hostility is removed.
- demilitarize
- Demilitarize is formal and refers to removing armed forces from an area, not weapons from a person.
Opposites
Word family
- disarmament noun
- the reduction or removal of military weapons
- disarming adjective
- charming and likely to remove suspicion
- disarmingly adverb
- in a way that removes suspicion, as in disarmingly honest
- arm verb
- to supply with weapons
- rearm verb
- to supply with weapons again
Commonly confused: disarm or defuse?
disarm vs defuse
Defuse is what you do to a bomb or a tense argument, while disarm usually refers to removing weapons from a person or removing a device's power. They overlap with bombs but differ with people.
Practice
The comedian's gentle joke managed to ____ the hostile audience.
Choose one answer.
Disarm here means to remove hostility with charm. Disperse would mean to scatter the audience, and dismiss would mean to send them away, so neither describes softening their mood.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “disarm”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.