deflower
Americanverb (used with object)
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to deprive (a woman) of virginity.
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to despoil of beauty, freshness, sanctity, etc.
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to deprive or strip of flowers.
The deer had deflowered an entire section of the garden.
verb
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to deprive of virginity, esp by rupturing the hymen through sexual intercourse
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to despoil of beauty, innocence, etc; mar; violate
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to rob or despoil of flowers
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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deflowersimple
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deflowerssimple
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have defloweredperfect
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has defloweredperfect
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am defloweringprogressive
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are defloweringprogressive
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is defloweringprogressive
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have been defloweringperfect progressive
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has been defloweringperfect progressive
Past
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defloweredsimple
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had defloweredperfect
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was defloweringprogressive
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were defloweringprogressive
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had been defloweringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of deflower
1350–1400; Middle English deflouren < Old French desflorer < Latin dēflōrāre, equivalent to dē- de- + flōr-, stem of flōs flower + -āre infinitive suffix
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:
Individual inspiration was a sacred thing, which reality with its rules and prejudices could only spoil and deflower.
From The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 13 by Rudd, John
In the budding of youth, ere wild winds can deflower The shut leaves of man's life, round the germ of his power Yet folded, his life had been earnest.
From Lucile by Meredith, Owen
Or— Defames the sunlight and deflowers the morn.
From Platform Monologues by Tucker, T. G. (Thomas George)
Jewish Law also punished this crime with death; but if a virgin was deflowered without force, the offender was obliged to pay a fine, and marry the woman.
From A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis Containing a Detail of the Various Crimes and Misdemeanors by which Public and Private Property and Security are, at Present, Injured and Endangered: and Suggesting Remedies for their Prevention by Colquhoun, Patrick
How art thou lost! how on a sudden lost, Defaced, deflowered, and now to death devote!
From Paradise Lost by Milton, John
How mistaken and roundabout have been our efforts to reach it by mystic passion, and monastic reverie; how they have deflowered the flesh; how little they have emancipated us!
From The Renaissance Studies in Art and Poetry by Pater, Walter
A rose of last October is a poor deflowered thing; but turn to the ice-bound garden-walks where, a month before, the chrysanthemum stood in autumn splendor.
From The Land of Long Ago by Hall, Eliza Calvert
Whatsoever is fair there have they defiled and deflowered, and they wallow in our fair halls as swine strayed from the dunghill.
From The Roots of the Mountains; Wherein Is Told Somewhat of the Lives of the Men of Burgdale by Morris, William
He wrote his mother: "I feel my own life all the more precious and dear in the presence of this deflowering of Europe."
From Time Magazine Archive
More than one wife, she reminded herself, and more than one deflowering, because according to Tilia, the Tartars took several wives, as the Muslims did.
From The Saracen: Land of the Infidel by Shea, Robert
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.
