Took away someone's weapons, or made someone feel less defensive or hostile by being charming or friendly. The past tense of 'disarm.'
From Old French 'desarmer,' combining 'des-' (meaning 'to reverse') and 'armer' (meaning 'to arm'). The literal meaning 'to remove weapons' appeared first around the 1400s, and by the 1600s the figurative sense of 'to overcome someone's defenses through charm' developed as a natural extension.
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