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Synonyms

unclothe

American  
[uhn-klohth] / ʌnˈkloʊð /

verb (used with object)

  • unclothes,
    present (3rd person singular)
  • unclothed,
    past participle,  past
  • unclad,
    past participle
  • unclothing
    present participle
  1. to strip of clothes.

  2. to remove a covering from; lay bare; uncover.


unclothe British  
/ ʌnˈkləʊð /

verb

  1. to take off garments from; strip

  2. to uncover or lay bare

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

Participles

Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

Future

Etymology

Origin of unclothe

First recorded in 1250–1300, unclothe is from the Middle English word unclothen. See un- 2, 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:

With some actors, words clothe feelings; with Jones, feelings unclothe words so that joy, rage, wonder and sadness radiate nakedly through the theater.

From Time Magazine Archive

Other men, again, possibly unclothe themselves of some practices, but they put on new clothing, they reform some passages for fear of censure, or shame, or such like.

From The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning by Hugh Binning

How came so many men of such different races and nations of mankind to hasten to unclothe themselves of all their previous beliefs in order to adopt these fantastical fables?

From The Eclipse of Faith Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic by Henry Rogers

Ministering angels are dimly seen in the background, and are summoned to unclothe and clothe Joshua.

From Expositions of Holy Scripture Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII by Alexander Maclaren

She regarded herself with detachment as a remarkable phenomenon, and therefore she could impersonally describe her career without any of the ordinary restraints—just as a shopman might clothe or unclothe a model in his window.

From Mr. Prohack by Arnold Bennett

The responsibility of light beckons, unclothes the familiar objects and not so familiar ones.

From Unmanned by Stephen Oliver

In the course of the ceremony the priest unclothes the babe and asks the godfather, “What seeks the child?”

From Armenian Legends and Festivals by Louis A. Boettiger

It is clothed and unclothed; decorated and distorted; idealized, stylized, politicized.

From The Wall Street Journal May 9, 2026

Vanos said the commonly-used wet-bulb temperature for human survivability assumes the person is indoors or shaded, unclothed, completely sedentary, fully heat acclimatized and of an "average size."

From Science Daily Nov. 30, 2023

He was unclothed, and had been wrapped in a flannel blanket, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

From New York Times Dec. 8, 2022

At the dawn of the Renaissance in Europe — including France, Germany and the Netherlands as well as Italy — unclothed human bodies are emerging from a long, medieval artistic slumber.

From Los Angeles Times Nov. 10, 2018

She lets the water run in the shower, turns up the thermostat to compensate for the terrible moment when she will have to step onto the mat on the bathroom floor, unclothed.

From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri

As for Britain, clad or unclad, entry into the Common Market was out of the question, despite his "exceptional esteem, attachment and respect" for the British people.

From Time Magazine Archive

I flung the warm shawl over her, and drew the edges tight round her neck, for I dreaded lest she should get some deadly chill from the night air, unclad as she was.

From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker

No clothing hid their dusky, copper-colored skins, of a hue unknown to their visitors, and they looked like the unclad tenants of some new paradise.

From Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III by Charles Morris

Penñarubia, in 1868, barring all unclad pagans from the Christianized towns, that the latter donned such garments.

From The Tinguian Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe by Fay-Cooper Cole

But it chanced, Hungry and desperate, he lost his cloth; And I—one garment bearing—followed still My unclad lord, despairing, reasonless, Through many a weary night not slumbering.

From Hindu literature : Comprising The Book of good counsels, Nala and Damayanti, The Ramayana, and Sakoontala by Sir Edwin Arnold

Why am I to begin with taking up a position not my own, and unclothing my mind of that large outfit of existing thoughts, principles, likings, desires, and hopes, which make me what I am?

From An Essay In Aid Of A Grammar Of Assent by John Henry Newman

Either the Spirit unclothing Unto new living for ever,— Or the dread penalty—never!

From My Life as an Author by Martin Farquhar Tupper

He looked at such unclothing in his own case as possible, but was confident that it would not happen so.

From The State of the Blessed Dead by Henry Alford

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