Mutilate

v. t. [imp. & p. p. MUTILATED; p. pr. & vb. n. MUTILATING.] [Lat. mutilare, mutilatum, from mutilus, maimed, Gr. μῶτιλος, μίτυλος, It. mutilare, Sp. mutilar, Fr. mutiler.]

1. To cut off a limb or essential part of; to maim; to cripple; to hack; as, to mutilate the body or the person; to mutilate a statue.
2. To retrench, destroy, or remove a material part of, so as to render imperfect; as, to mutilate the poems of Homer, or the orations of Cicero.

Among the mutilated poets of antiquity, there is none whose fragments are so beautiful as those of Sappho. Addison.