delouse

American

[dee-lous, -louz] / diˈlaʊs, -ˈlaʊz /

verb (used with object)

deloused, delousing

to free of lice; remove lice from.

delouse British

/ -ˈlaʊz, diːˈlaʊs /

verb

(tr) to rid (a person or animal) of lice as a sanitary measure

"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

delouser noun

Etymology

Origin of delouse

First recorded in 1915–20; de- + louse

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.

An illustration from a 16th-century health manual shows an upper-class woman using a brush to delouse a man — and "both seem pretty happy about it," Sarasohn writes.

From Salon • Nov. 21, 2021

“When we arrived in Houston, they wanted to delouse us before we got off the bus,” said Rebels, a horticulturalist.

From Washington Post • Aug. 29, 2021

The sharks repeatedly visited the station and swam slowly around, giving the fish time to delouse them.

From BBC • Mar. 18, 2011

There are about 70,000 children and adults in the schools now, learning to read, write, delouse themselves, ply trades.

From Time Magazine Archive

Under its cover Russian sappers swept forward to "delouse" German minefields.

From Time Magazine Archive

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023