MUTILATE (3)

Mu″ti‐late (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Mutilated (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Mutilating (?).] 1. 1. To cut off or remove a limb or essential part of; to maim; to cripple; to hack; as, to mutilate the body, a statue, etc.
2. 2. To destroy or remove a material part of, so as to render imperfect; as, to mutilate the orations of Cicero.
Among the mutilated poets of antiquity, there is none whose fragments are so beautiful as those of Sappho. Addison. Mutilated gear, Mutilated wheel (Mach.), a gear wheel from a portion of whose periphery the cogs are omitted. It is used for giving intermittent movements.