Disabling

How to spell disabling

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce disabling

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does disabling mean?

1. adjectiveSevere enough to take away normal physical or mental function.
2. verbSwitching off or removing the working function of a device, feature, or system.

Disabling in a sentence

• adjective

  Chronic back pain can be a disabling condition that ends a career.

• verb

  Disabling the firewall left the whole network exposed to attack.

• adjective

  The stroke left her with disabling weakness on one side of her body.

• verb

  She spent the morning disabling unused notifications on her phone.

Where does disabling come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built on the verb 'disable', which English assembled in the late 1400s from the prefix 'dis-', meaning 'reverse' or 'take away', and the adjective 'able'. 'Able' itself came through Old French from the Latin habilis, which literally meant 'easy to hold or handle' and so 'fit, capable', formed from habere 'to have or hold'. Adding 'dis-' simply flipped that capability into incapacity, so 'disable' meant to strip something or someone of the power to act. The present participle 'disabling' then served two everyday roles: the ongoing act of switching something off, and an adjective describing a condition severe enough to take away normal function. The same habilis root quietly survives in the related words 'ability', 'habit', and 'rehabilitate'.

How the word is built

• dis- (reverse, remove)
• able (capable, from Latin habilis 'easy to handle')
• -ing (present participle / adjective suffix)