Meaning & use

pulverize

verb·Academic

To crush something into fine powder or tiny fragments, or, informally, to defeat someone completely.

See it in a sentence

The machine pulverizes rock into fine dust for testing.

Our team was pulverized in the final match, losing by a huge margin.

A note on using this word

Beyond its literal sense of physically crushing something, pulverize is commonly used informally to describe a decisive defeat in sports or competition.

Words with a similar meaning

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