unfrock

present singular third person unfrocks · participle present unfrocking · participle past unfrocked · past unfrocked

1. transitiveTo remove from the clergy; to revoke the clerical status of.

   Let’s wake up and oppose this widespread defamation; restore to the feast its significance and grandeur. Shall we permit it to be unfrocked of its glory and transformed essentially into “Clausmas” instead of Christmas?

   1948 December 19, George H. Sallaway, “Coming—‘Clausmas Day’”, in Our Sunday Visitor, Omaha Archdiocesan True Voice edition, volume XXXVII, number 34, Omaha, Neb., →OCLC, Religious section, page 9, column 3

   1 more example

   Being a provincial priest—at first dressed as a layman, having been unfrocked for his modernism, but afterwards restored to his clerical privileges—he had a traditional admiration for all that was ecclesiastically important.

   1952 May, George Santayana, “I Like to Be a Stranger”, in The Atlantic

   Synonyms: defrock, disfrock, unpriest