uncowl

uncowl verb: to divest or deprive of a cowl (monk's hood or hooded robe).

Verb

uncowl (third-person singular simple present uncowls, present participle uncowling, simple past and past participle uncowled)

(transitive) To divest or deprive of a cowl (monk's hood or hooded robe).
- See’st thou an Isle, by Palmers, Pilgrims trod,
  Men bearded, bald, cowl’d, uncowl’d, shod, unshod,1728, [Alexander Pope], “Book the Third”, in The Dunciad. An Heroic Poem. […], Dublin; London: […] A. Dodd, →OCLC, page 41
- Can the pope, to say nothing of himself and his cardinals, do away with his four archbishops and ninety-eight bishops? Will he reduce the prodigious number of his priests, who muster as strong as one twenty-eighth of the population? Will he uncowl his monks, two thousand and twenty-three of whom...1849, L. Mariotti, chapter 11, in Italy, Past and Present, volume 2, London: Chapman, pages 389–399
(archaic, figuratively, transitive) To uncover; to unveil.
- I pray you, think us friends—uncowl your face,
  For you seem faint, and the night-breeze blows healing.1797, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Osorio, London: John Pearson, 1873, Act I, p. 24
- While we uncowl our souls,
  Bare to the God who rolls
  Earth on its icy poles,
  Clasp me in pray’r.1850, John Savage, “Love in the Golden Vale”, in Lays of the Fatherland, New York: J.S. Redfield, page 91
To remove or pull back one's cowl.
- “Monseigneur, it is not often your capuchin uncowls; least of all when he wishes to remain unknown! […]”1859, Louis Alexis Chamerovzow, chapter 1, in The Chronicles of the Bastile, New York: Stanford & Delisser, page 26
- And thence, after a word or two had passed, came the priest I had seen; and when he uncowled I knew him for my friend Selred, and glad I was to see him.1905, Charles Whistler, chapter 16, in A King’s Comrade
(transitive) To remove the cowl (protective covering) from (an engine).
- […] uncowling the airplane before each flight is neither practical nor expected. In fact, uncowling such an airplane repeatedly may wear the latching or fastening devices.1980, George C. Larson, chapter 3, in Fly on Instruments, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, page 29
- Uncowl the engine, check for evidence of any leaks.1994, Geza Szurovy, Mike Goulian, chapter 20, in Basic Aerobatics, Blue Ridge Summit, PA: TAB Books, page 217

Examples of uncowl in a sentence

Will he uncowl his monks, two thousand and twenty-three of whom swarm about the streets of Rome alone?1849, L. Mariotti, chapter 11, in Italy, Past and Present, volume 2, London: Chapman, pages 389–399:
She wouldn’t uncowl, for modesty she said, but let me ground her and lift dun shift to white shoulders.1972, John Barth, “Perseid”, in Chimera, New York: Fawcett Crest, page 103:

Forms of uncowl

third-person singular present	uncowls
present participle	uncowling
past participle	uncowled
past	uncowled

Origin of uncowl

From un- + cowl.

Questions about uncowl

What does uncowl mean?: Uncowl means to divest or deprive of a cowl (monk's hood or hooded robe).
How do you use uncowl in a sentence?: Will he uncowl his monks, two thousand and twenty-three of whom swarm about the streets of Rome alone?
What part of speech is uncowl?: Uncowl is a verb.
What is the past tense of uncowl?: The past tense of uncowl is uncowled.

Words near uncowl in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: uncowl (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “uncowl.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/uncowl. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.