disposal
Pluraldisposals
- 1The act of throwing away, destroying, or otherwise getting rid of something.
The company was fined for the illegal disposal of toxic chemicals.
Safe disposal of expired medication prevents accidental poisoning.
Similarremoval, dumping, discarding, destruction, elimination
- 2The freedom or authority to use something or someone as one wishes.
The manager had a full team at her disposal for the launch.
He placed all his resources at the disposal of the charity.
Similarservice, command, use, control
Note
Almost always met in one fixed frame: at someone's disposal, or at the disposal of someone. A person has things at their disposal, and things are placed or put at a person's disposal. In this sense it takes no plural. Outside the phrase it sounds stiff, and "available to" is the everyday equivalent.
- 3An electric device mounted under a kitchen sink that grinds food waste so it can be flushed through the plumbing.
She flicked the switch and the disposal roared to life under the sink.
Coffee grounds and eggshells can dull a disposal's grinding blades over time.
Note
A clipped form of garbage disposal, used once the kitchen setting makes the full name unnecessary. A 1978 Boston classified advertisement in Gay Community News offers "Dishwasher, disposal and many closets". There the appliance appears as an amenity alongside the dishwasher, and the single word is enough for the reader.
- 4An arrangement, ordering, or classification of things; the way in which items are positioned or grouped.
The architect's drawing showed a careful disposal of rooms around a central courtyard.
The catalog reflected a methodical disposal of specimens by region and era.
Similararrangement, layout, ordering, placement, configuration
Note
Formed from dispose plus -al, the noun keeps the verb's sense of setting things in order: a disposal of rooms, of specimens, of parts within a design. Disposition can stand in for it here. The same verb gives the 'getting rid of' meaning and the power to use, so context, not form, tells these apart.
- 5A kick or handball by which a player moves the ball during a game of Australian rules football.
The midfielder racked up over forty disposals across the four quarters.
A clean disposal under pressure set up the winning goal.
Note
This is a statistician's word in Australian rules football. Every kick and every handball a player makes counts as one disposal, and the total is a standard measure of how involved that player was. That is why it usually appears as a number: a player can be quiet "with just seven disposals". It grows from the 'getting rid of' sense, since the player is getting rid of the ball.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of disposal apart? Answer 4 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
Formed from the verb "dispose" with the suffix "-al".