sabotage

1 of 2

noun

sab·​o·​tage ˈsa-bə-ˌtäzh 

1

: destruction of an employer's property (such as tools or materials) or the hindering of manufacturing by discontented workers

2

: destructive or obstructive action carried on by a civilian or enemy agent to hinder a nation's war effort

3

a

: an act or process tending to hamper or hurt

b

: deliberate subversion

sabotage

2 of 2

verb

sabotaged; sabotaging

transitive verb

: to practice sabotage on

Examples of sabotage in a Sentence

Noun

Angry workers were responsible for the sabotage of the machines.

Officials have not yet ruled out sabotage as a possible cause of the crash.

Verb

They sabotaged the enemy's oil fields.

The airplane crashed because it was sabotaged.

The lawyer is trying to sabotage the case by creating confusion.

The deal was sabotaged by an angry employee.

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

The Baltic Sea has been the scene of mysterious undersea incidents in recent years, such as the sabotage attacks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines running from Russia to Germany in 2022. —David Brennan, ABC News, 19 Nov. 2024

In April, German authorities arrested two German-Russian nationals accused of scouting US military sites for potential sabotage, including allegedly arson. —Dhruv Mehrotra, WIRED, 19 Nov. 2024

Verb

Without giving away too much of the ending, Gabriel sort of sabotages himself in the examination hall. —Dennis Zhou, The New Yorker, 15 Dec. 2024

Through clandestine operations and cyberattacks, the country sabotaged key Iranian nuclear facilities. —Suzanne Maloney, Foreign Affairs, 10 Dec. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Noun

French, from saboter to clatter with sabots, botch, sabotage, from sabot

First Known Use

Noun

1910, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Verb

1913, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

sabotage

1 of 2 noun

sab·​o·​tage ˈsab-ə-ˌtäzh 

1

: destruction of an employer's property or the action of making it difficult to work by discontented workers

2

: destructive or blocking action carried on by enemy agents or sympathizers to make a nation's war effort more difficult

sabotage

2 of 2 verb

sabotaged; sabotaging

: to practice sabotage on : wreck

Etymology

Noun

from French sabotage "destruction of property to hinder a manufacturing or war effort," from saboter "to clatter around wearing sabots, botch," from sabot "a wooden shoe"

Word Origin

Because the word sabotage appears related to French sabot, "wooden shoe," some people have thought that in the first cases of sabotage in France, industrial workers must have thrown their sabots into machinery in order to damage it. In fact, there is no evidence for such an etymology. The French verb saboter is known in the sense "to damage an employer's property" in the early 1900s but this meaning is perhaps based on an earlier sense "to carry out clumsily, botch, bungle," first attested in 1808. This meaning is in turn usually explained as proceeding from a yet older sense, "to make a clattering noise with sabots," on the premise that walking with wooden shoes suggests clumsy performance. It is hard to know if these diverse meanings are a single line of development, or if the associations evoked in Frenchmen by this piece of peasant footwear brought about episodes of verb creation from the same noun.

Legal Definition

sabotage

noun

sab·​o·​tage ˈsa-bə-ˌtäzh 

1

: the willful destruction of an employer's property or the hindering of normal operations by other means

2

: the injury, destruction, or knowingly defective production of materials, premises, or utilities used for war or national defense compare criminal syndicalism, sedition

Etymology

Noun

French, from saboter to clatter with wooden shoes, botch, sabotage, from sabot wooden shoe