Library / English Dictionary

SEVER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cut off from a whole

Example:

The soul discerped from the body

Synonyms:

discerp; lop; sever

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "sever" is one way to...):

cut (separate with or as if with an instrument)

Verb group:

break up; sever (set or keep apart)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

severance; severing (the act of severing)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Set or keep apart

Example:

sever a relationship

Synonyms:

break up; sever

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "sever" is one way to...):

disunite; divide; part; separate (force, take, or pull apart)

Verb group:

discerp; lop; sever (cut off from a whole)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

severance (a personal or social separation (as between opposing factions))

Credits

 Context examples: 

The researchers first used an automated process to examine whether the compounds prevented SENP2 from severing the connection between a tiny metal bead and an artificial SUMO protein created in the lab.

(Hibernating ground squirrels provide clues to new stroke treatments, National Institutes of Health)

I looked. The lanyards had been almost severed, with just enough left to hold the shrouds till some severe strain should be put upon them.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The firemen had been much perturbed at the strange arrangements which they had found within, and still more so by discovering a newly severed human thumb upon a window-sill of the second floor.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Grafting is done by cutting a plant off near the root, shaping its stalk into a wedge and fitting this into a matching groove on the severed stem of another plant.

(Grafting helps pepper plants deal with drought, SciDev.Net)

On emptying this, Miss Cushing was horrified to find two human ears, apparently quite freshly severed.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A surgical procedure to prevent rotational relapse of teeth after an orthodontic treatment; the epithelial attachment surrounding the involved teeth is severed.

(Circumferential Supracrestal Fiberotomy, NCI Thesaurus)

It was like severing heart strings, when he was with Ruth, to stand up and go; and he scorched through the dark streets so as to get home to his books at the least possible expense of time.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

It might be ‘sever,’ or ‘lever,’ or ‘never.’ There can be no question that the latter as a reply to an appeal is far the most probable, and the circumstances pointed to its being a reply written by the lady.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

For, friend John, hardly had my knife severed the head of each, before the whole body began to melt away and crumble in to its native dust, as though the death that should have come centuries agone had at last assert himself and say at once and loud I am here!

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

It was thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations than any particular degradation in my faults, that made me what I was, and, with even a deeper trench than in the majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound man’s dual nature.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)