Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Destruction of property or obstruction of normal operations, as by civilians or enemy agents in time of war.
- n. Treacherous action to defeat or hinder a cause or an endeavor; deliberate subversion.
- v. To commit sabotage against.
Wiktionary
- n. A deliberate action aimed at weakening an enemy through subversion, obstruction, disruption, and/or destruction.
- n. An act or acts with intent to injure, interfere with, or obstruct the national defense of a country by willfully injuring or destroying, or attempting to injure or destroy, any national defense or war materiel, premises, or utilities, to include human and natural resourcesJP 1-02 Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms..
- v. to deliberately destroy or damage something in order to prevent it from being successful
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Scamped work.
- n. Malicious waste or destruction of an employer's property or injury to his interests by workmen during labor troubles.
- n. any surreptitious destruction of property or obstruction of activity by persons not known to be hostile; -- in war, such actions carried out behind enemy lines by agents or local sympathisers of the hostile power.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a deliberate act of destruction or disruption in which equipment is damaged
- v. destroy property or hinder normal operations
Etymologies
- French, from saboter, to walk noisily, bungle, sabotage, from sabot, sabot; see sabot.
Examples
“The word sabotage is storied to be from the French word for wooden shoe, sabot, to recall how French workers threw their shoes into newfangled machinery to foil the efforts of industrial revolution bosses.”
“OTTAWA — The Bloc Quebecois filed a police complaint over what it described as sabotage in one of four federal byelections Monday.”
“AMMAN Reuters - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Saturday legislation to lift 48 years of emergency law would be enacted by next week but warned that new laws in the works would not be lenient toward what he called sabotage.”
“In fact, according to the ghostly murmurings of Mary Alice’s narration, there is a lot more depth to the term sabotage than those pesky Beastie Boys would have us believe.”
“Preventing last-minute efforts at sabotage is more difficult, structurally, because there are very few processes in government that are immunized from political interference.”
“The headline asks if sabotage is happening - with no proof (that I can see) to even hint that such a thing has happened and/or that NASA is investigating actual events as suspected sabotage at this attempt.”
“Nah, self-sabotage is part and parcel with becoming a Democrat.”
“Note that it would be impossible to distinguish this sabotage from the average COIN presentation.”
“They say the allegations against him amount to participating in a battle with enemy soldiers, which, in contrast to targeting civilians or sabotage, is not a war crime.”
“(C) knowingly engages in sabotage or international terrorism, or activities that are in preparation therefor, for or on behalf of a foreign power.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘sabotage’.
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probablyankita's list
Words are all I have to take your heart away
apartheid, techno-klutz, logorrheic, gordian knot, anodyne, odor of sanctity, finders keepers, foot-in-mouth dis..., dutch uncle, masquerade, smoke signals, furtive glance and 320 more...
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Words that are also movies
Unabashedly stolen from a comment made by courier12.
vertigo, serendipity, casablanca, psycho, jaws, fantasia, stagecoach, network, rocky, giant, platoon, unforgiven and 285 more...
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The -ages of Man(-age)
Trivet also has this list, which you should go see. And then I found this list, and this list...
manage, salvage, selvadge, savage, voyage, umbrage, entourage, homage, carriage, marriage, language, potage and 123 more...
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things (bad)
things you may fall victim to.
goto things (good)
( randomness, events, situations, nouns )treachery, quagmire, overdose, bombing, suicide, homicide, spam, prison, acute renal failure, bad programming, being pants'd, bleeding out and 26 more...
hernesheir The etymology gives the origin of the word, rather than the uses to which sabots were put to. Clomping around in wooden boots would require the wearer to invest in a pair of hard-wearing sashoons, no? Jan 10, 2012
Sapiens i thought the etymology was to kick someone from the side with wooden boots, in French, which was "sabot" Jan 10, 2012
hernesheir Then there is this: Pizzeria Owner Left Mice At Rival Shops. I aver rats and cockroaches will triumph in the end.
"This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper." - T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men Mar 1, 2011
lampbane "I Can't Stand It I Know You Planned It
But I'm Gonna Set It Straight, This Watergate
I Can't Stand Rocking When I'm In Here
Because Your Crystal Ball Ain't So Crystal Clear
So While You Sit Back And Wonder Why
I Got This Fucking Thorn In My Side
Oh My God, It's A Mirage
I'm Tellin' Y'all It's Sabotage" Jul 30, 2007