v. [UN-2 5.]
1. trans. To divest of husk or shell; † to clean (a fish) of spines.
1598. Florio, Diliscare, to vnhuske or clense fish from bones.
1602. Dolman, La Primaud. Fr. Acad. (1618), III. 812. It must bee beaten in a morter, to vnhuske it.
1665–6. Phil. Trans., I. 202. I have sown a little French Barley and Rice seed and am thinking on a way of un-husking them.
a. 1693. Urquhart’s Rabelais, III. xviii. 145. The Bean is not seen till … it be unhuskt.
1808–14. A. Wilson, in Poems & Lit. Prose (1876), I. 288. Unhusking the seed from the burr in a twinkling.
1884. R. Walker, Five Threes, 79. The nuts which fall off the trees are collected bi-weekly, and are then split open with an axe (not unhusked).
2. fig. To strip of a covering or disguise; to lay open, expose.
1596. Nashe, Saffron-Walden, S iv. I would we might know her, and see her vnhu[s]kt and naked once.
1607. Tourneur, Rev. Trag., I. i. He began By policy to open and unhusk me About the time and common rumour.
1610. Healey, St. Aug. Citie of God, 390. All the good wee doe, comes from God, by whose pardon wee are unhusked of the old man, sinne.
1892. Sat. Rev., 17 Dec., 719/1. The ‘Comic Spirit’ may puzzle him…. You have got but to unhusk and unshell it, and there it is.
Hence Unhusking vbl. sb.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Decortication,… the peeling, or unhusking of Roots, Seeds, Fruits, &c.
1756. T. Birch, Hist. Royal Soc., II. 78. The way used by them for the unhusking of rice.
