English

Verb

unroof ‎(third-person singular simple present unroofs, present participle unroofing, simple past and past participle unroofed)

1. To remove a roof from, e.g. a building.
   • 1607-8, William Shakespeare, Tragedy of Coriolanus, Act I, Scene I,

     The rabble should have first unroof'd the city, / Ere so prevail'd with me:

   • 1787, Robert Burns, "Written by Somebody on the Window of an Inn at Stirling," 1-4,

     Here Stuarts once in glory reigned, / And laws for Scotland's weal ordained; / But now unroof'd their palace stands, / Their sceptre's sway'd by other hands;

   • 1960, Ted Hughes, "Nicholas Ferrer" in Lupercal, Faber & Faber, p. 25,

     […] Rain-logged, wind-unroofed, / The manor farm hulked its last use / As landmark. […]

   • 2006, Swithin Wilmot, "'We not slave again': Enslaved Jamaicans in Early Freedom, 1838-1865" in The Faces of Freedom: The Manumission and Emancipation of Slaves in Old World and New World Slavery, Marc Kleijwegt (ed.), Brill, p. 222,

     When the workers rejected these terms, some planters threatened to evict them, and others unroofed cottages and turned estate cattle through the workers’ provision grounds.

Translations