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Definition of "decouple" [decouple]

  • Electronics To reduce or eliminate the coupling of (one circuit or part to another). (verb-transitive)
  • Physics To decrease or eliminate airborne shock waves from (an explosion) by having it take place underground. (verb-transitive)
  • To separate or detach: "There's not the slightest possibility that America would be decoupled from Europe by the pursuit of this vital initiative” ( Caspar W. Weinberger). (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "decouple" in a sentence
  • "It seems likely that gold and silver prices will decouple from the official spot price as this crisis unfolds."
  • "Thus, while sound has been, and continues to be, understood as too material, not fully able to decouple from the realm of the material, fantasies of a disembodied voice increasingly defined the imagination for the castrato singer on the part of English listeners and readers."
  • "The team's key innovation was to find a way to completely disconnect - or "decouple" - interactions between the elements of their quantum circuit."