devenustate

English

Etymology

From Latin devenustatus, past participle of devenustare (“to disfigure”), from de + venustus (“lovely, graceful”).

Verb

devenustate (third-person singular simple present devenustates, present participle devenustating, simple past and past participle devenustated)

1. (obsolete, rare) To deprive of beauty or grace.
   • 1866 August, A. Means, “Hygiene”, in Scott's Monthly Magazine, volume 2, number 3:

     When a plant of well-known species is grown in a very dark chamber, as a cellar or basement story, where it is inaccessible to light, it becomes a colorless, succulent and feeble thing, whose botanical relationships would scarcely be recognized; and if there be a crevice in the wall through which a few straggling rays may enter, the devenustated creeper instinctively directs its growth towards that opening, as if anxious to greet the welcome visitant.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “devenustate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)