Third person singular of depaint; to remove paint from something or to strip away painted covering.
From de- (prefix meaning to remove) + paint (from Old French peinte, past participle of peindre, meaning to color or coat). The verb form emerged in English to describe the reversal of painting.
Depaint is a wonderfully simple word that shows how English builds new verbs by adding 'de-' to existing words—this same pattern created 'defrost,' 'decode,' and 'debug,' making it one of our language's most productive prefixes for creating opposites.
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