disinter

English

WOTD – 18 July 2012

Etymology

Borrowed from French désenterrer.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˌdɪsɪnˈtɜː(ɹ)/
    • (file)

Verb

disinter (third-person singular simple present disinters, present participle disinterring, simple past and past participle disinterred)

  1. To take out of the grave or tomb.
    Synonyms: unbury, exhume, dig up
  2. To bring out, as from a grave or hiding place; to bring from obscurity into view.
    • 1870, James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night:
      Why disinter dead faith from mouldering hidden?
    • 1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC:
      At this moment, however, the rooms bore every mark of having been recently and hurriedly ransacked; clothes lay about the floor, with their pockets inside out; lock-fast drawers stood open; and on the hearth there lay a pile of grey ashes, as though many papers had been burned. From these embers the inspector disinterred the butt end of a green cheque book, which had resisted the action of the fire.

Antonyms

  • (take out of a grave): inter
English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *ters-‎ (0 c, 38 e)

Translations

Anagrams

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