decouple

From French découpler.

• (UK) IPA^(key): [diːˈkʌpəɫ], [diːˈkʊpəɫ]

decouple (third-person singular simple present decouples, present participle decoupling, simple past and past participle decoupled)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To unlink; to take or come apart.

   Coordinate term: (economics) derisk

   radiation decoupled from matter

   to decouple a spent rocket stage

   • 2022 February 9, Paul Stephen, “Network News: Crossrail's Canary Wharf the ninth station to transfer to TfL”, in RAIL, number 950, page 15:

     Wild said in a previous project update that Bond Street had been "decoupled from the opening of the railway" and that it is not yet clear if it will open as part of the initial Elizabeth Line opening this spring.

2. (transitive, military) To muffle the seismic waves of (a nuclear explosion) by performing it underground.
   • 1961, Hans Albrecht Bethe, Edward Teller, The Future of Nuclear Tests, page 18:

     Smaller explosions and decoupled tests would be permitted. Further, the United States proposed that the three powers should start intensive research on the improvement of methods for detection and identification of underground explosions […]

   • 1993, Sam Marullo, Ending the Cold War at Home, page 55:

     Decoupled tests would be nuclear explosions set off in massive underground caverns, a site that would greatly reduce the seismic waves caused by the explosion.

• “decouple”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.