disrobe
Americanverb (used with or without object)
verb
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to remove the clothing of (a person) or (of a person) to undress
-
(tr) to divest of authority, etc
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of disrobe
Explanation
When you disrobe, you take your clothes off. Before you go swimming, you should probably disrobe and put on a bathing suit. Everyone disrobes, before we take a shower, change our clothes, or go skinny dipping. To disrobe is simply to get undressed. You might disrobe in a dressing room to try on a tuxedo or disrobe before your karate class so you can put on your white karate gi. The word uses the prefix dis-, "do the opposite of," before robe, with its old fashioned verb sense of "clothe."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“The fact that I have to prove I don’t have tattoos on my upper body, disrobe, quite frankly is a little humiliating,” Rhambo told The Times on Thursday.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 10, 2021
Monsignor Charles Portelli, who was the cathedral’s master of ceremonies in the 1990s, testified that he was always with Pell after Mass to help him disrobe in the sacristy.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 26, 2019
Monsignor Charles Portelli, who was the cathedral's master of ceremonies in the 1990s, testified that he was always with Pell after Mass to help him disrobe in the sacristy.
From Fox News ● Feb. 26, 2019
Later, a curt attendee comes to lead her down a drab, darkened hall, ushers her into a room, locks the door, and asks Sawyer to empty her bag, hand over her phone and disrobe.
From Washington Times ● Mar. 21, 2018
Then he, being called away, if he had instructed others to disinter the body, would never have instructed them to hide it on his own premises, much less to disrobe it for no purpose whatever.
From Out of a Labyrinth by Lawrence L. Lynch
Sue Tilley was 35 years old and working in a London employment office when she disrobed and let British artist Lucian Freud paint her in the nude.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 24, 2026
Chief Justice Varale also invoked Draupadi from the epic Mahabharat, who's saved by Hindu god Krishna when she's being disrobed, to advise women "to pick up arms as no god will come to protect you".
From BBC ● Dec. 26, 2023
It kind of disrobed a layer of caution or insecurity that was there for a long time.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 20, 2022
He headed western U.S. congregations but was disrobed in a church trial last year after officials concluded he had mishandled funds.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 25, 2022
Gradually, however, the truth came to her aid, and she saw the dreaded ghost disrobed of his terrors, and changed into a familiar and harmless reality.
From Horse-Shoe Robinson A Tale of the Tory Ascendency by John Pendleton Kennedy
But the disrobing has other benefits: A thick, sour miasma of pig excrement engulfs me as I make my way inside, and I’m glad I’ve left my clothes behind.
From Science Magazine ● Dec. 7, 2023
She delivered again, face stripped of makeup and disrobing from her couture to wear a simple black t-shirt and ripped jeans to perform "Hold My Hand" from "Top Gun."
From Salon ● Mar. 13, 2023
The leaving behind not just of my language but of my sense — however meager — of belonging was a divesting, a disrobing: It was both freedom and exposure.
From New York Times ● Apr. 19, 2022
Later that day, the fresh tape on her temples would unstick in time for the scrubbing, disrobing, and de-wigging that must take place before Sarah can go home to her wife.
From Slate ● Mar. 29, 2019
In the latter state, he seemed a flimsy dingy-blond youth of medium height, fleshless and perhaps sunken-chested; disrobing revealed that he was nothing of the sort, but, rather, an athlete constructed on a welterweight scale.
From "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
