undevil
verb/ʌnˈdɛvɪl/
Etymology From un- + devil.
1
Archaic To free from possession by a devil or evil spirit; to exorcise or to make less devilish.
- The boy having gotten a habit of counterfeiting […] would not be undevilled by all their exorcisms.1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI):
- [...] for the following day, the flowers were watered a quarter of an hour earlier than usual, and the bulfinch was allowed to perch on her finger and chirruped to, with a degree of innocent tenderness that would have undeviled Mephistophiles.1841, Mrs. Gore (Catherine Grace Frances), Cecil:
1 more example
- It is hardly more wondrous to undevil a man than it is to restore reason, at a word, to the brain-distracted, the ravening, frenzied bedlamite — the re-enthronement of a mind lost in the darkness of shattered intellect.1893, Thomas De Witt Talmage, From Manger to Throne:
- Derived terms
- undevilled