unhabituate

English

Etymology

un- +‎ habituate

Verb

unhabituate (third-person singular simple present unhabituates, present participle unhabituating, simple past and past participle unhabituated)

1. To reverse or overcome the effects of habituation.
   • 1841, Francis Whaley Harper, The powers of the Greek tenses, and other papers, pages 8–9:

     It is in loneliness and retirement — the solitude which unhabituates men to that sharp definiteness of thought which is needful for its expression to another, in the seasons of mist and gloom, which make external nature no scene for the wanton eye to revel in the contemplation of, in the absence of the beautifully elaborated forms of art, and amid such prospects of nature as engender dim and indefinite feelings in the heart, rather than present distinctly outlined images for the eye and the fancy ;

   • 1996, Paul F. Campos, Pierre Schlag, Steven Douglas Smith, Against the Law, page 141:

     Almost immediately in their legal education, they are habituated to a certain way of thinking about law, and the role I see myself as having here besides habituating them to think about law in that way is to unhabituate them to thinking about law in those sorts of ways.

   • 2018, Stephen R. Davis, The ANC's War against Apartheid:

     Learning to “see” around these strategies and unhabituate the reader's eye is more about selectively recentering demoted experiences than transparently reproducing foregrounded historiographical “rescue attempts.”