deobstruct

English

Etymology

de- +‎ obstruct

Verb

deobstruct (third-person singular simple present deobstructs, present participle deobstructing, simple past and past participle deobstructed)

  1. (chiefly medicine) To clear (something) of obstructions.[1]
    Synonym: unblock
    • 1664, Jeremy Taylor, A Dissuasive from Popery to the People of Ireland‎, Dublin: John Crooke, Preface to the Reader:
      […] we humbly desire of God […] [that] he will be pleas’d to convey to them [the people of Ireland] the notices of their danger, and their sin, and to deobstruct the passages of necessary truth to them,
    • 1732, John Arbuthnot, Practical Rules of Diet‎, London: J. Tonson, Chapter 1, section 19, p. 274:
      […] such as carry off the Foeces and Mucus, deobstruct the Mouths of the Lacteals, so as the Chyle may have a free Passage into the Blood.
    • 1850, Edward Tilt, chapter 5, in On Diseases of Menstruation and Ovarian Inflammation‎, London: John Churchill, page 144:
      […] he exhibited an instrument which he had invented for deobstructing the Fallopian tubes in such cases.

References
  1. Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, London, 1755: “DEOBSTRUCT, […] To clear from impediments; to free from such things as hinder a passage.”

Anagrams
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