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The name popularly given to the rich man in our Lord's parable of the "Rich Man and Lazarus" (Luke xvi. 19-31). Hence, a name for a rich worldling.

Fig.: To strip; to deprive; to dispossess; as, to divest one of his rights or privileges; to divest one's self of prejudices, passions, etc. Wretches divested of every moral feeling. Goldsmith. The tendency of the language to divest itself of its gutturals. Earle.

Capable of being divested.

The act of stripping, or depriving; the state of being divested; the deprivation, or surrender, of possession of property, rights, etc.

The act of divesting. [R.]

Divestiture. [Obs.]

Divested of blades; as, bladed corn.

To turn from, or divest of, Christianity.

To divest of the bark, husk, or exterior coating; to husk; to peel; to hull. "Great barley dried and decorticated." Arbuthnot.

To divest of human qualities, such as pity, tenderness, etc.; as, dehumanizing influences.

Addicted to pleasure; luxurious; voluptuous; alluring. [R.] Dives, for his delicate life, to the devil went. Piers Plowman. Haarlem is a very delicate town. Evelyn.

To divest or deprive of national character or rights. Bonaparte's decree denationalizes, as he calls it, all ships that have touched at a British port. Cobbett. An expatriated, denationalized race. G. Eliot.

To divest of all covering; to make bare or naked; to strip; to divest; as, to denude one of clothing, or lands.

To lay down; to divest one's self of; to lay aside. [Obs.] Thus when the state one Edward did depose, A greater Edward in his room arose. Dryden.

The act of depriving, dispossessing, or bereaving; the act of deposing or divesting of some dignity.

To dispossess; to bereave; to divest; to hinder from possessing; to debar; to shut out from; -- with a remoter object, usually preceded by of. God hath deprived her of wisdom. Job xxxix. 17. It was seldom that anger deprived him of power over himself. Macaulay.

To divest of provincial quality or characteristics.

To divest of a sacred character or office; to divert from a sacred purpose; to violate the sanctity of; to profane; to put to an unworthy use; -- the opposite of consecrate. The [Russian] clergy can not suffer corporal punishment without being previously desecrated. W. Tooke. The founders of monasteries imprecated evil…

To strip, as of clothing; to divest or unclothe. [Obs.] Chaucer.

To remove or drive from a throne; to depose; to divest of supreme authority and dignity. "The Protector was dethroned." Hume.