depilate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin dēpilātus (“stripped of hair”),^[2][3][4] the past participle of dēpilō (“to pull out the hair”),^[5][6][7] from dē- and pilō (“to deprive of hair”),^[6][7][8] from pilus (“hair”),^[5][6][9] which is also the source of pile in the sense of soft hair.^[2][10] Etymonline allows that it may instead be a back-formation from depilation,^[10] which the Oxford Dictionary of English also records earlier.^[4] The OED compares French dépiler, in Paré in the 16th century.^[5] Etymonline notes an earlier English verb depile, from the early 15th century.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

To remove the hair from, to make bare of hair: 1575, in J. Rolland's Court of Venus; the OED also notes a Scots past tense, depilat.^[5] Etymonline and Dictionary.com put the verb in the 1550s,^[10][3] and the Shorter Oxford in the mid-16th century.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The verb has kept its Latin meaning, with little change.^[5][9] A use for removing skin or peel, recorded in 1620 in T. Venner's Via Recta, did not last.^[5] The noun depilation had been used for loss of hair from the early 15th century and for removing it from the 1540s.^[10]

Timeline

• 1575 – to remove the hair from.^[5] Etymonline dates the verb to the 1550s.^[10]
• 1620 – to remove the skin of; to peel (obsolete, rare).^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To remove the hair from a part of the body or a hide: The tanner depilated the hides before curing them.^[9][2][5]

Word family

• depilation
• depilator

Related words

• pilous
• pilose
• depilatory
• pile

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com