unadorn

Verb

unadorn (third-person singular simple present unadorns, present participle unadorning, simple past and past participle unadorned)

1. To add a feature or embellishment that makes something uglier; uglify.
   • No ugly monument of their ancestors disfigures the church walls, no hideous brick box unadorns the country churchyard, and a plain stone, perhaps moss grown, is all the record of their fathers they can show.1891, Thomas Anderton, Letters from a Country House, page 57
   • In connection with this splendid record I want to point a moral (though it will unadorn the tale), for I recently heard a city man say in a public meeting: “Why, these dairymen are getting rich. They have cows that will make a thousand pounds of butter in a year and look what they get for butter.”1921, Pacific Rural Press - Volume 101, page 121
2. To remove the adornments from.
   • Yet, I have long tried to unadorn Myself for you. I would toss all the trinkets And lavalieres into a box to escape Worshiping.1997, George Plimpton, Peter Matthiessen, Donald Hall, The Paris Review, →ISBN, page 54
   • He alerts them to every conceivable pitfall, unadorns them of every emotional bias, slices through every pie in the sky as if it's lemon meringue.2001, Gale Group, Newsmakers - Issue 4, →ISBN, page 281