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.

• "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."