Sabotage

Sabotage

Noun / Verb · /ˈsæbəˌtɑːʒ/ · deliberate damage or disruption to obstruct an operation or plan

Definition

Sabotage means deliberately damaging, disrupting, or obstructing something — a machine, an operation, a plan, or a relationship — in order to prevent it from functioning or succeeding. As a noun, sabotage is the act itself: a campaign of sabotage, industrial sabotage, deliberate sabotage of the peace talks. As a verb, to sabotage something is to carry out that act: they sabotaged the pipeline; he sabotaged his own chances by arriving late. The word covers both physical destruction and subtler forms of obstruction — withholding information, spreading misinformation, or simply failing to cooperate at a critical moment.

Origin

From French sabotage, derived from saboter, meaning to make noise with wooden shoes or to work badly. The wooden shoe, the sabot, was the source of the original metaphor — workers who dragged their feet, worked noisily, or threw sabots into machinery to disrupt production. The word entered English during the nineteenth century labour movement, when French workers used deliberate slowdowns and damage as a form of industrial protest. By the First World War, sabotage had acquired its modern military and political meaning of deliberate destruction behind enemy lines.