Declassifies

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To transform previously secret information into publicly accessible material, thereby allowing disclosure to authorized entities and removing restrictions on sharing
2. Reveals information that was previously restricted, making it available to wider audiences
3. Changes the status of documents so they no longer have confidentiality constraints

Etymology: "Declassifies" is the third-person singular form of "declassify," which means to remove the official secrecy from documents or information so that they become public. The verb is built from two English parts: the prefix "de-," which carries the sense of reversal or removal, and "classify," which itself comes from "class" plus the verb-forming suffix "-ify." So the word literally means "un-classify," undoing an earlier act of putting material into a restricted category. The "de-" prefix descends from Latin "dē," meaning "down," "away," or "off," and it reaches English as a productive element that can be attached to many verbs to mean undoing or taking away. Here it reverses "classify," a word whose sorting sense is older than its security sense. The modern official meaning, of placing information under restricted access, grew out of that basic act of sorting things into classes, and "declassify" simply turns the process back around.

Synonyms: unseals, releases, discloses, reveals, publishes

Antonyms: classifies, conceals, withholds, hides, suppresses