unwig

present singular third person unwigs · participle present unwigging · participle past unwigged · past unwigged

1. transitiveTo remove a wig from.

   I was unwigging myself, wiping off the white from my chubby boy’s face, easing myself out of bodice and fardingale.

   1993, Anthony Burgess, A Dead Man in Deptford, New York: Carroll & Graf, published 1995, Part 1, pp. 14-15

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   Painter. Sir, ’Squire Lumpkin, the little, round, fine gentleman, employ’d me to paint white wigs, upon all the pictures, at half-a-crown a head. […] Tony. Can you unwig ’em again?

   1780, John O’Keeffe, Tony Lumpkin in Town, London: T. Cadell, act 2, pages 34–35

   […] I remember well that one of his jests on this occasion was pinning the wig of His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury to the wig of that right reverend Father in God, the Lord Bishop of London, as these two holy men sat discussing the question of a pension on the Irish establishment, for one of the King’s cast-off mistresses; and when they rose and moved in opposite directions great was their dismay at finding that they unwigged each other.

   1869, Edward Vaughan Kenealy, chapter 6, in Edward Wortley Montagu: An Autobiography, volume 1, London: T. Cautley Newby, page 124

2. transitiveTo remove (someone) from a position marked by the wearing of a wig, such as that of barrister or judge.

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   1844, Charles Waterton, “The Wren, the Hedge-Sparrow, and the Robin” in Essays on Natural History, Chiefly Ornithology, Second Series, London: Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans, p. 96, […] only the other day, in Dublin, a high dignitary of the law did exhibit such palpable partiality in a cause of “Victoria versus Repeal,” that he ought to have been unwigged there and then, and banished for ever from that arena of marked injustice to poor ould Ireland, and her patriot sons.

   This view of forms and ceremonies never commended itself to Mr Gladstone. […] he knew “the sacred virtue of parchment and sealing-wax.” He saw that the same principle underlay the vestments of the Church, and the robes of the Judicial Bench, and the uniforms of Army and Navy […]. “How many men,” he asked me during the Parliament of 1880, “how many men would vote for unwigging the Speaker?”

   1912, George W. E. Russell, chapter 24, in Afterthoughts, London: Grant Richards, page 217

3. intransitiveTo take off one's wig.

   “I’d like to take a look at you without all that stuff on, so I could see what difference it makes.” Grinning, I said, “Sorry, I can’t unwig in here.”

   1989, Samuel Holt, chapter 24, in The Fourth Dimension Is Death, New York: Tom Doherty Associates, page 148

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   The man is a good female impersonator, with a deceptive voice. He handles himself well and is a good dresser. No one in the line ever got more from removing the wig than does this man, who uses good judgment in selecting the proper moment to unwig.

   1911 August 19, “Fifth Avenue”, in Variety, volume 23, number 11, page 22