unhabituate

U1N1H4A1B3I1T1U1A1T1E1

verb

To reverse or overcome the effects of habituation.

Scrabble 16

Meanings

verbunhabituate (third-person singular simple present unhabituates, present participle unhabituating, simple past and past participle unhabituated)

present singular third person unhabituates · participle present unhabituating · participle past unhabituated · past unhabituated

  1. To reverse or overcome the effects of habituation.

    Learning to “see” around these strategies and unhabituate the reader's eye is more about selectively recentering demoted experiences than transparently reproducing foregrounded historiographical “rescue attempts.”

    2018, Stephen R. Davis, The ANC's War against Apartheid
    2 more examples

    It is in loneliness and retirement — the solitude which unhabituates men to that sharp definiteness of thought which is needful for its expression to another, in the seasons of mist and gloom, which make external nature no scene for the wanton eye to revel in the contemplation of, in the absence of the beautifully elaborated forms of art, and amid such prospects of nature as engender dim and indefinite feelings in the heart, rather than present distinctly outlined images for the eye and the fancy ;

    1841, Francis Whaley Harper, The powers of the Greek tenses, and other papers, pages 8–9

    Almost immediately in their legal education, they are habituated to a certain way of thinking about law, and the role I see myself as having here besides habituating them to think about law in that way is to unhabituate them to thinking about law in those sorts of ways.

    1996, Paul F. Campos, Pierre Schlag, Steven Douglas Smith, Against the Law, page 141

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

unhabituate. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unhabituate

MLA

“unhabituate.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unhabituate. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “unhabituate,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unhabituate.

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