debaptize

• debaptise (non-Oxford, Commonwealth)

From de- +‎ baptize.

debaptize (third-person singular simple present debaptizes, present participle debaptizing, simple past and past participle debaptized)

1. (transitive) To undo the baptism of.
   • 1999, Mary Blume, A French Affair: The Paris Beat, 1965-1998, page 25:

     New street names cannot cause confusion with existing streets, nor is it any longer permitted to debaptize parts of streets in order to give them new names […]

2. (transitive) To rename or to remove a name from.
   • 2004, Eric Michaud, The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany, tr. from French by Janet Lloyd, Stanford University Press, →ISBN, page 91:

     The volkisch leanings were therefore, for example, to debaptize the Christian festivals and consecrate them instead to the gods of the Teutons, who constituted the Volksgeist, the “heritage from the ancestors” or the genius of the race.

   • 2010, Jill Fell, Alfred Jarry, Reaktion Books, →ISBN, page 28:

     Fargue had persuaded Jarry to ‘debaptize’ him from the more explicit original title, Caméleo, ‘Leo’ being too obviously related to ‘Léon’.

• debaptism