disinter

English

WOTD – 18 July 2012, 18 July 2013, 18 July 2014, 18 July 2015

Etymology

Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁
Proto-Indo-European *-s
▲
Proto-Indo-European *trísinflu.
Proto-Indo-European *d(w)is-
Proto-Italic *dis-
Latin dis-
Old French des-
Middle French des-
French dés-
French enterrer
French désenterrerbor.
English disinter

    Borrowed from French désenterrer.

    Pronunciation

    • IPA(key): /ˌdɪsɪnˈtɜː(ɹ)/
      • Audio (Southern England):(file)

    Verb

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

    1. (transitive) To take out of the grave or tomb.
      Synonyms: unbury, exhume, dig up
      Antonym: inter
    2. (transitive, figurative) 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, “The Carew Murder Case”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 42:
        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; lockfast drawers stood open; and on the hearth there lay a pile of gray 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; […]
      • 2001 May 12, Robert Potts, “The poet at play”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian‎[1], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 15 October 2026:
        In his lectures he is equally wide-ranging and allusive, making strange links and analogies between apparently unrelated texts and ideas, and disinterring etymologies which writers cannot have been aware of.

    Derived terms

    English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *ters- (0 c, 40 e)

    Translations

    Anagrams

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