Dictionary

undevil en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /ʌnˈdɛvɪl/

Etymology

From un- + devil.

Meanings

1. (archaic, transitive) To free from possession by a devil or evil spirit; to exorcise or to make less devilish.
   • The boy having gotten a habit of counterfeiting […] would not be undevilled by all their exorcisms. 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI):
   • It is hardly more wondrous to undevil a man than it is to restore reason, at a word, to the brain-distracted, the ravening, frenzied bedlamite — the re-enthronement of a mind lost in the darkness of shattered intellect. 1893, Thomas De Witt Talmage, From Manger to Throne:
   • [...] for the following day, the flowers were watered a quarter of an hour earlier than usual, and the bulfinch was allowed to perch on her finger and chirruped to, with a degree of innocent tenderness that would have undeviled Mephistophiles. 1841, Mrs. Gore (Catherine Grace Frances), Cecil:

Forms

Deriveds

undevilled