unmember

unmember verb: to deprive of membership, as for example in a church.

Verb

unmember (third-person singular simple present unmembers, present participle unmembering, simple past and past participle unmembered)

(transitive) To deprive of membership, as for example in a church.
- ["Non-confoederate persons, in their sense are "Non members of the Church, &c.] and consequently their children have no title to Baptisme, (which is one of our Authours arguments in pag. 10 of his book, borrow'd from Mr. Hooker, part. 2, p. 24, whereby he unmembers and unchurches all not so...1652, Daniel Cawdrey, A sober answer to a serious question propounded by mr. G. Firmin
- Ques. Suppose a man does not choose to pay his fine? Ans. Then he is unmembered, and if he goes to see and comes to an accident, he gets no benefit.1826, John Beveridge, Evidence in favor of the Seamen, page 15
(rare, transitive) To dismember.
- Beneath thy hand we lie— Unmembered, broken, bleeding hearts, Nor dare to question why.1881, Drummond Welburn, Memoir of William Kendrick, page 117
- Who curse the knives That unmembered them .1968, El Corno emplumado: The Plumed horn, page 72

unmember (plural unmembers)

A non-member.
- Friday evening around 8:30, you'd toil up the rickety stairs at 37 East 8th Street, perhaps stopping off for a chat in James Rosati's studio—halfway up—and watch him work on his bust of Lewitin, who was the domestic Cerberus, with a pale blue eye cocked for unwelcome unmembers.1975 January 6, Thomas B. Hess, “When Art Talk was a Fine Art”, in New York Magazine, volume 8, number 1, page 83
- Calcutta the temperature-taker, the dispenser of aspirins, the receiver of Medicaid payments, the unmember of the A.M.A., the husband of a woman who can't read the arrows in parking lots because she can't see over the dashboard because she's so fat from having so many kids paid for by American tax...1988, Dallas E. Wiebe, Going to the Mountain, page 18

Hooker, part. 2, p. 24, whereby he unmembers and unchurches all not so constituted.1652, Daniel Cawdrey, A sober answer to a serious question propounded by mr. G. Firmin:
Or, that the people have become their enemies and burdens, when they first make and account them enemies, unmember and unchurch them, as very little better then heathens.2012, Daniel Cawdrey, C. Matthew McMahon, A Discourse on Church Discipline and Reformation, page 79:
I says to myself 'You've gone and unmembered this man .'1987, David Carkeet, I Been There Before, page 33:
The values that her family and culture held were very important to Lisa, and she fretted over the prospect of becomming an "unmember” of her family, were she to become pregnant outside marriage.2010, Jerrold S. Greenberg, Clint E. Bruess, Sarah C. Conklin, Exploring the Dimensions of Human Sexuality:

Verb
third-person singular present	unmembers
present participle	unmembering
past participle	unmembered
past	unmembered
Noun
plural	unmembers

From un- + member.

What does unmember mean?: Unmember means to deprive of membership, as for example in a church.
How do you use unmember in a sentence?: Hooker, part. 2, p. 24, whereby he unmembers and unchurches all not so constituted.
What part of speech is unmember?: Unmember can be a verb or a noun.
What is the past tense of unmember?: The past tense of unmember is unmembered.

Adapted from Wiktionary: unmember (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: “unmember.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unmember. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.