Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To remove the hoops of, as a barrel or cask.
  • To remove the stiff petticoats or hoop-skirts of, as a woman: probably jocose, and with allusion to def. 1.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To strip or deprive of hoops; to take away the hoops of.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To remove the hoops from.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

un- +‎ hoop

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Examples

  • All he did was unhoop the barrel, refit the staves, and draw the hoops back on, moretightly than before.

    Alvin Journeyman Card, Orson Scott 1995

  • 'Though you have taken a resolution, in one of your papers, to avoid descending to particularities of dress, I believe you will not think it below you on so extraordinary an occasion, to unhoop the fair sex, and cure this fashionable tympany that is got among them.

    The Coverley Papers Various

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