Emily Dickinson Lexicon

STRIP, v.t. [G. streifen, to strip, to flay, to stripe or streak, to graze upon, to swerve, ramble or stroll; D. streepen, to stripe, to reprimand; Dan. striber, to stripe or streak, and stripper, to strip, to skin or flay, to ramble; Sax. bestrypan. Some of the senses of these verbs seem to be derived from the noun stripe, which is probably from stripping. Regularly, this verb should be referred to the root of rip, L. rapio.]

1. To pull or tear off, as, a covering; as, to strip the skin from a beast; to strip the bark from a tree; to strip the clothes from a man's back.
2. To deprive of a covering; to skin; to peel; as, to strip a beast of his skin; to strip a tree of its bark; to strip a man of his clothes.
3. To deprive; to bereave; to make destitute; as, to strip a man of his possessions.
4. To divest; as, to strip one of his rights and privileges. Let us strip this subject of all its adventitious glare.
5. To rob; to plunder; as, robbers strip a house.
6. To bereave; to deprive; to impoverish; as, a man stripped of his fortune.
7. To deprive; to make bare by cutting, grazing or other means; as, cattle strip the ground of its herbage.
8. To pull off husks; to husk; as, to strip maiz, or the ears of maiz. – America.
9. To press out the last milk at a milking.
10. To unrig; as, to strip a ship. – Locke.
11. To pare off the surface of land in strips, and turn over the strips upon the adjoining surface. To strip off, to pull or take off; as, to strip off a covering; to strip off a mask or disguise. #2. To cast off. [Not in use.] – Shak. #3. To separate from something connected. [Not in use.] [We may observe the primary sense of this word is to peel or skin, hence to pull off in a long narrow piece; hence stripe.]