castrate
verbUK /ˈkæs.tɹeɪt/
Etymology Borrowed from Latin castrātus, perfect passive participle of Latin castrō, see -ate (verb-forming suffix). Displaced native geld in its broader sense.
1
To remove the testicles of a person or animal.
- If the priests of Diana of Ephesus castrated themselves and offered their genitals on the altar, it was because the phallus was the symbol of the dying body.1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 129:
2
Uncommon To remove the ovaries and/or uterus of an animal.
3
Figuratively To take something from; to render imperfect or ineffectual.
- Derived terms
- castratable, castratee, castrater, castration, castratism, castrative, castrator, castratrix, hemicastrate, immunocastrate, semicastrate, uncastrate
- Hyponyms
- emasculate