devest
English
editEtymology
editFrom Middle French devester (“strip of possessions”), from Old French desvestir, from des- (“dis-”) + vestir (“to clothe”).
Verb
editdevest (third-person singular simple present devests, present participle devesting, simple past and past participle devested)
- To divest; to undress.
- c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:
- Devesting them for bed
- (law, transitive) To take away, as an authority, title, etc., to deprive; to alienate, as an estate.
- (law, intransitive) To be taken away, lost, or alienated, as a title or an estate.
Related terms
editPart 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 The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.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 “devest”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)
Anagrams
editSerbo-Croatian
editNumeral
editdevest (Cyrillic spelling девест)
- (colloquial) ninety
- Synonym: (Standard) devedeset