unwigging

English

Verb

unwigging

1. present participle and gerund of unwig

Noun

unwigging (plural unwiggings)

1. The act of removing a wig from someone.
   • 1874, Christopher Wordsworth, editor, Social Life at the English Universities in the Eighteenth Century‎^[1], Cambridge: Deighton, Bell & Co., p. 612, note to p. 43:

     The frontispiece by Hogarth seems to represent the unwigging and unfrocking of the Author and the tearing of his paper in the presence of the Vice-Chancellor, proctor, and other members of the University […]

   • 1921 November 4, “New Acts This Week: Myles Mershon and Co., ‘Dance Creations,’”, in Variety, volume 64, number 11, page 20:

     A colonial number at the close had all three dancers out, they being slippered for the first time. The idea of the dance was the unwigging of one of the “girls,” who turned out to be a boy.

2. The act of dismissing someone from a position marked by the wearing of a wig, such as a barrister or judge.
   • 1992, John Mortimer, “Rumpole on Trial”, in Rumpole on Trial‎^[2], Penguin, page 225:

     Perhaps I should explain the obscure legal process that has to be gone through in the unfrocking, or should I say unwigging, of a barrister.