desecate

present singular third person desecates · participle present desecating · participle past desecated · past desecated

1. obsoleterareTo cut, as with a scythe; to mow.

   So far as it has gone, it probably is the most pure and desecated public good which has ever been conferred on mankind.

   1798, Edmund Burke, The Beauties of the Late Right Hon. Edmund Burke, volume 2

   1 more example

   Now, as we have already remarked, it is the province of the eclectic philosophy to search out the central truth of each system and desecate it from the mass of commingled truth and error.

   1841, The Methodist Quarterly Review, volume 23, page 348

present singular third person desecates · participle present desecating · participle past desecated · past desecated

1. obsoleteObsolete spelling of desiccate.

   […] and which new element will, by a sort of elective attraction, secrete and desecate from ore and alloy, all the truth that either has.

   1831 December 28, “Cousin's Philosophy”, in American Quarterly Review, volume 20, page 294

   2 more examples

   Dry, searching, desecating, and cutting, this assassin breath of death pierces through flesh and bone to the marrow; hence the careful way in which the natives cover their months, the women with handkerchiefs, the men by muming themselves up in their cloaks, embozandos en las capas.

   1847, John Murray, A Hand-book for Travellers in Spain, page 403

   It is well known that the high temperature of sandy deserts, neven produces fever; that the fiery blast of the Harmattan which desecates the fluids, and withers the whole aspect of nature, puts an immediate end to fever, and that on the coast of Africa, after the rainy seasons, they welcome this blast, as with it the recovery of invalids commences.

   1857, Edward H. Barton, The Cause and Prevention of Yellow Fever at New Orleans and Other Cities in America