Pulverises

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Breaks down a substance into very tiny particles or fine dust by crushing or grinding
2. Grinds or crushes materials until they become a soft powdery form
3. Turns solid matter into a fine dust or powder through forceful crushing or milling

Etymology: "Pulverises" is the third-person singular form of "pulverise", so the core story is the verb itself. It descends from Latin "pulvis", meaning "powder" or "dust", and the Latin verb "pulverizare" meant to reduce something to powder. The word came into English from Middle English "pulverizen", and it runs in parallel with French "pulvériser", which carries the same sense of reducing material to dust. The English word is built from "pulver", meaning powder, plus the common verb-forming ending "-ise". That ending, which English took from Greek and Latin-based verbs, is what turns a noun for a substance into an action: to turn something into powder. Its shape is a little misleading, since the ending came along through Latin rather than being a native English suffix, so the word reads as a simple English verb built from a plain noun.

Synonyms: grinds, crushes, mashes, pounds, shatters

Antonyms: compacts, assembles, builds, constructs, forms