verb · 4 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
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dĭs′ĕm-băr′əs
Received-Pronunciation:/ˌdɪs.ɛmˈbæɹ.əs/
Received-Pronunciation:/-em-/
Received-Pronunciation:/-ˈbaɹ-/
General-American:/ˌdɪs.ɛmˈbæɹ.əs/without the Mary–marry–merry merger
Southern-England:Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
rhymes with -æɹəs
1
verb
Meaning 1
To get (someone) out of a difficult or embarrassing situation; to free (someone) from the embarrassment (of a situation); (often reflexive) to relieve (someone of a burden, item of clothing, etc.).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: transitive
Examples
1726, George Berkeley, letter to Thomas Prior dated 6 February, 1726, in The Works of George Berkeley, London: G. Robinson, Volume 1, p. xliv, [...] I hope [...] that you will have disembarrassed yourself of all sort of business that may detain you here, and so be ready to go with us [...]
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: disburden, disencumber, extricate
Antonyms: none provided
2
verb
Meaning 2
To free (something) from complication.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete, transitive
Examples
1719, uncredited editor, A Collection of Tracts Concerning Predestination and Providence, Cambridge University Press, Preface, [...] that we might disembarrass the Style as much as possible, we have taken the liberty to transpose Parentheses and other perplexed Passages, so as to clear and reduce them to continued Sentences.
1783, Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, Dublin: Whitestone et al., Volume 1, Lecture 8, pp. 180-181, There is no doubt that, by abolishing cases, we have rendered the structure of modern Languages more simple. We have disembarrassed it of all the intricacy which arose from the different forms of declension, of which the Romans had no fewer than five; and from all the irregularities in these several declensions.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
3
verb
Meaning 3
To disentangle (two things); to distinguish.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete, transitive
Examples
1751, William Warburton, commentary on An Essay on Man in The Works of Alexander Pope, London: J. & P. Knapton et al., Volume 3, p. 63, [...] though it be difficult to distinguish genuine Virtue from spurious, they having both the same appearance, and both the same public effects, yet they may be disembarrassed. If it be asked, by what means? He replies [...] By Conscience [...]
