desublimate

D2E1S1U1B3L1I1M3A1T1E1

verb

To undergo desublimation; to change directly from a gas to a solid.

Scrabble 16

Meanings

verbdesublimate (third-person singular simple present desublimates, present participle desublimating, simple past and past participle desublimated)

present singular third person desublimates · participle present desublimating · participle past desublimated · past desublimated

  1. intransitivenatural sciencesTo undergo desublimation; to change directly from a gas to a solid.
  2. transitivehuman sciencesMake explicit that which has been sublimated or obscured because it is not socially acceptable.

    The practice of pornography teaches its subjects to desublimate the sensuous apprehension.

    2000, Allison Pease, Modernism, Mass Culture, and the Aesthetics of Obscenity, →ISBN, page 85
    2 more examples

    However, the question remains as to why the text does not desublimate the hard-boiled genre's investments around gender, sexuality, race, and nation with the same sort of scrupulous rigor that it demystifies the economic and social ideology of the form.

    2005, Christopher Breu, Hard-boiled Masculinities, →ISBN, page 81

    When we desublimate the things we have repressed, we create a space in which we feel liberated to be as monstrous as we wish.

    2012, Luke Howie, Witnesses to Terror, →ISBN, page 121

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

desublimate. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/desublimate

MLA

“desublimate.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/desublimate. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “desublimate,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/desublimate.

Source: desublimate on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.