Word.ws English Dictionary

unsurplice

unsurplice verb: to remove the surplice (and associated religious status) from.

Verb

unsurplice (third-person singular simple present unsurplices, present participle unsurplicing, simple past and past participle unsurpliced)

  1. (transitive) To remove the surplice (and associated religious status) from.
    • If a Wesleyan member in Parliament has the power to unsurplice the priests and deacons of the Church of England, the member of the Church of England may hang the cope upon the shoulders of the Conference.1845, The Quarterly Review (London), volume 161, page 482
    • […] but Mr. — and such like, might hold an indignation meeting against him for going against the Bishops, if he did not unsurplice his choir and degrade his service to their Dissenting level.1882, Arthur Rawson Ashwell, Reginald Garton Wilberforce, Life of the Right Reverend Samuel Wilberforce, D. D., page 189

Forms of unsurplice

third-person singular presentunsurplices
present participleunsurplicing
past participleunsurpliced
pastunsurpliced

Origin of unsurplice

From un- + surplice.

Questions about unsurplice

What does unsurplice mean?
Unsurplice means to remove the surplice (and associated religious status) from.
What part of speech is unsurplice?
Unsurplice is a verb.
What is the past tense of unsurplice?
The past tense of unsurplice is unsurpliced.

Words near unsurplice in the dictionary

  1. unsurpassably
  2. unsurpassed
  3. unsurpassedly
  4. unsurpassedness
  5. unsurpassing
  6. unsurplice
  7. unsurpliced
  8. unsurplices
  9. unsurplicing
  10. unsurprisable
  11. unsurprise

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unsurplice (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.

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