unsex

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un·sex

(ŭn-sĕks′)

tr.v. un·sexed, un·sex·ing, un·sex·es

1. To deprive of sexual capacity or sexual attributes.

2. To castrate.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

unsex

(ʌnˈsɛks)

vb (tr)

chiefly literary to deprive (a person) of the attributes of his or her sex, esp to make a woman more callous

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

un•sex

(ʌnˈsɛks)

v.t.

1. to deprive of sexual power; spay or castrate.

2. to deprive or divest of the qualities deemed appropriate for one's sex.

[1595–1605]

unsex

Past participle: unsexed
Gerund: unsexing

Imperative
unsex
unsex

Present
I unsex
you unsex
he/she/it unsexes
we unsex
you unsex
they unsex

Preterite
I unsexed
you unsexed
he/she/it unsexed
we unsexed
you unsexed
they unsexed

Present Continuous
I am unsexing
you are unsexing
he/she/it is unsexing
we are unsexing
you are unsexing
they are unsexing

Present Perfect
I have unsexed
you have unsexed
he/she/it has unsexed
we have unsexed
you have unsexed
they have unsexed

Past Continuous
I was unsexing
you were unsexing
he/she/it was unsexing
we were unsexing
you were unsexing
they were unsexing

Past Perfect
I had unsexed
you had unsexed
he/she/it had unsexed
we had unsexed
you had unsexed
they had unsexed

Future
I will unsex
you will unsex
he/she/it will unsex
we will unsex
you will unsex
they will unsex

Future Perfect
I will have unsexed
you will have unsexed
he/she/it will have unsexed
we will have unsexed
you will have unsexed
they will have unsexed

Future Continuous
I will be unsexing
you will be unsexing
he/she/it will be unsexing
we will be unsexing
you will be unsexing
they will be unsexing

Present Perfect Continuous
I have been unsexing
you have been unsexing
he/she/it has been unsexing
we have been unsexing
you have been unsexing
they have been unsexing

Future Perfect Continuous
I will have been unsexing
you will have been unsexing
he/she/it will have been unsexing
we will have been unsexing
you will have been unsexing
they will have been unsexing

Past Perfect Continuous
I had been unsexing
you had been unsexing
he/she/it had been unsexing
we had been unsexing
you had been unsexing
they had been unsexing

Conditional
I would unsex
you would unsex
he/she/it would unsex
we would unsex
you would unsex
they would unsex

Past Conditional
I would have unsexed
you would have unsexed
he/she/it would have unsexed
we would have unsexed
you would have unsexed
they would have unsexed

Collins English Verb Tables © HarperCollins Publishers 2011

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Verb	1.	unsex - deprive of sex or sexual powers deprive, divest, strip - take away possessions from someone; "The Nazis stripped the Jews of all their assets"
	2.	unsex - remove the qualities typical of one's sex; "She unsexed herself" alter, change, modify - cause to change; make different; cause a transformation; "The advent of the automobile may have altered the growth pattern of the city"; "The discussion has changed my thinking about the issue"
	3.	unsex - make infertile; "in some countries, people with genetically transmissible disabilites are sterilized" desex, desexualise, desexualize, sterilise, sterilize, fix neuter, spay, castrate, alter - remove the ovaries of; "Is your cat spayed?" demasculinise, demasculinize, emasculate, castrate - remove the testicles of a male animal vasectomise, vasectomize - remove the vas deferens; "many men choose to be vasectomized as a form of safe birth control" operate on, operate - perform surgery on; "The doctors operated on the patient but failed to save his life"

unsex

verb

To render incapable of reproducing sexually:

alter, castrate, fix, geld, neuter, spay, sterilize.

Translations

unsex

[ˈʌnˈseks] VT (liter) → privar de la sexualidad, suprimir el instinto sexual de

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

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References in periodicals archive ?

The rituals of spiritualism, writes Masicotte, "allowed female mediums to borrow the voices of male scientists without the risk of 'unsexing' themselves by identifying with such voices."

The Mystical is Political

Tennyson's poem Sir Galahad (1842) serves as inspiration for the watercolour The Quest of the Holy Grail (1855), executed in collaboration with Elizabeth Siddal, as well as for the sketch Sir Galahad and an Angel (1857) and the finished watercolour Sir Galahad and the Ruined Chapel (1859), in which the tension of body and spirit is resolved in what Mesa Villar calls "the unsexing of the Grail hero" (270).

Jose Maria Mesa Villar. 2014. Women in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Arthurian Renditions (1854-1867)

Once implemented, female presence in combat won't mean, ipso facto, the unsexing of the American woman.

From mothers to killers

Nineteenth-century sexual-biological theories taught that women would be rendered sterile through strenuous intellectual efforts such as oratory, "unsexing" themselves literally as well as figuratively.

Margaret Fuller's conversations: speaking as revision and feminist resistance

Only by "unsexing" herself will she be empowered to kill King Duncan.

Unisex CEDAW, or what's wrong with women's rights

In Moray's judgmental universe, British feminist art historian Griselda Pollock is also invoked to cast a shadow on both Pemberton and Crease, who not only did not embrace modernism but, according to Moray, "did not violate the proprieties requested of their gender, did not risk the unsexing that threatened the vanguard woman artist" (32).