Meanings
present singular third person deoculates · participle present deoculating · participle past deoculated · past deoculated
- To remove the eyes or their equivalent from (someone).
Big Mac's cancer is miraculously cured when he deoculates one of the severed heads and sinks them both out in the bay.
1984, Books and Bookmen, page 253 more examples
"Lear" and "We Come to the River" have much in common, beyond the scene of deoculating the straitjacketed protagonist: images of brutality, executions, and jubilation; of soldiers starting to question their orders ("They make you do things no one should even have to dream of and cheer you when you've done it"); of suffering; and — fleeting yet powerful in both works— of a peaceful family life in which children's questions are asked and answered about the marvels of the natural world, not about hardships and unhappiness.
1976, The New Yorker - Volume 52, Part 5, page 188Sadly deoculated by his enemy, the Genji, after defeat, Kagekiyo lives out his days in darkened solitude, visited finally by his long-lost daughter.
2002, Timon Screech, The Lens Within the Heart“Did you know,” said Roderick, “that St. Lucy had beautiful eyes, so she was deoculated as a martyrdom? Her symbol is a pair of eyes on a saucer.”
2010, Nick Gevers, Marty Halpern, Is Anybody Out There?
Origin
From de- + oculo- + -ate (verb-forming suffix); coined by Charles Lamb in a letter to William Wordsworth written in 1816: "Dorothy, I hear, has mounted spectacles; so deoculated two of your dearest relations in life. ".
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
deoculate. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/deoculate
“deoculate.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/deoculate. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “deoculate,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/deoculate.
Source: deoculate on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.