disrobe
Americanverb (used with or without object)
verb
-
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:
When we were eventually led into Osmosis’ tidy changing rooms to disrobe, I smelled what she meant before I saw it.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 2025
If you find the skins difficult to remove, drop the fruit in boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds, plunge in an ice bath and then they should be more easy to disrobe.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 20, 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 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
The Indians enter the closed covering, the ceremonial pipe is smoked, a gourd of cold water is handed to each; they then disrobe, the attending priest lowering the blanket over the entrance.
From The Vanishing Race by Joseph Kossuth Dixon
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
Cameras are likely to pan away as they did when Queen Elizabeth was disrobed of her cloak and jewellery during her televised coronation in 1953.
From BBC ● Apr. 19, 2023
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
She was at home in her bathrobe, and during our conversation, she disrobed and changed into her day clothes.
From Slate ● Nov. 26, 2020
But the ceremony did not end here, for the poor babes were taken to a font, and in the midst of long Coptic prayers they were disrobed and immersed three times.
From Harper's Young People, October 12, 1880 An Illustrated Weekly by Various
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
If the animal is wearing a coat or sweater, the officer may subject the pet to a pat-down, but disrobing the animal is not necessary.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 24, 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
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.
