unsteel

present singular third person unsteels · participle present unsteeling · participle past unsteeled · past unsteeled

1. transitiveTo disarm; to soften.

   Why then should this enervating pity unsteel my foolish heart?

   1748, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter XXV”, in Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volume V, London: […] S[amuel] Richardson; [a]nd sold by John Osborn, […], →OCLC, page 215

   2 more examples

   Thou hast his conqu’ring Sword unsteel’d, His Valour turn’d to shameful Flight.

   1696, Nahum Tate, Nicholas Brady, A New Version of the Psalms of David, London: The Company of Stationers, Psalm 89, Part 2, v. 43, p. 185

   The more we drown the disabled in tea and lip gratitude the more we unsteel his soul, and the harder we make it for him to win through, when, in the years to come, the wells of our tea and gratitude have dried up.

   1919, John Galsworthy, “The Sacred Work”, in Another Sheaf, London: Heinemann, page 9