devest

English

Etymology

From Middle French devester (“strip of possessions”), from Old French desvestir, from des- (“dis-”) + vestir (“to clothe”).

Verb

devest (third-person singular simple present devests, present participle devesting, simple past and past participle devested)

1. To divest; to undress.
   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:

     Devesting them for bed

2. (law, transitive) To take away, as an authority, title, etc., to deprive; to alienate, as an estate.
3. (law, intransitive) To be taken away, lost, or alienated, as a title or an estate.

Related terms

• divest

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “devest”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• steved, vested

Serbo-Croatian

Numeral

devest (Cyrillic spelling девест)

1. (colloquial) ninety

   Synonym: (Standard) devedeset