disenthrall

present singular third person disenthralls · participle present disenthralling · participle past disenthralled · past disenthralled · alternative UK disenthral · alternative archaic disinthral

1. To disenchant; to break (someone) from a spell of (mental) captivation.

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   The Cubans have an intense love of music. […] The park was filled with people of all ages, sexes and conditions. On the marble flooring around the base of the statue, scores of children were dancing to dance music. […] When a lively Spanish tune is struck all begin to chatter and the children irresistibly begin to dance. When some soft sweet tune, after mingling with the odors of the flowers, starts gently upon the air, and moves through the starlight out upon the gulf, then there comes with it a hush of the vast crowd, as if each soul had been silenced by some supernatural power. Suddenly, all are disenthralled by a battery of sounds from a military air.

   1900 January 28, John R. Wilson, “A trip to Cuba”, in The Indianian, volume 5, number 1, Indianapolis, page 43

2. literarytransitiveotherwise archaicTo free from slavery or captivation (thraldom).

   He noted Gandhi’s sense of satyagraha and a statement of Lincoln’s during the depths of the Civil War: “We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”

   2008 March 30, Peter Applebome, “Applying Gandhi’s Ideas to Climate Change”, in New York Times

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   In four words lies all our power—universal emancipation and representative legislature! […] I speak […] in the spirit of the British law, which makes liberty commensurate with and inseparable from British soil; which proclaims even to the stranger and sojourner, the moment he sets his foot upon British earth, that the ground on which he treads is holy, and consecrated by the genius of Universal Emancipation. No matter in what language his doom may have been pronounced; no matter what complexion incompatible with freedom an Indian or an African sun may have burnt upon him; no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have been cloven down; no matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar of slavery; the first moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the god sink together in the dust; his soul walks abroad in her own majesty; his body swells beyond the measure of his chains that burst from around him, and he stands redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled by the irresistible genius of Universal Emancipation?

   1902, John Philpot Curran, quotee, “John Philpot Curran”, in David Patrick, editor, Chambers's Cyclopædia of English Literature, New Edition by David Patrick, LL.D. edition, volume 2, page 681

   Synonyms: unenthrall, unenslave, emancipate, free, unslave · Antonyms: enthrall, enslave, shackle, fetter