Disenlisted

Part of speech: verb, adjective

Definitions

1. Released from an enlistment or discharged from military service before the term of obligation has run out
2. Formally let go from a military or other enlisted commitment, ending the service that a person had signed up for
3. Freed from the obligation of an enlistment, having been discharged from the ranks or from a sworn term of duty

Etymology: Enlisting means putting your name on a roll, and this word undoes that: it means to release someone from an enlistment. Its parts are the prefix "dis-", meaning reversal or removal, and "enlist", which itself combines "en-" with "list" in the sense of a register of names. That "list" likely began as a word for a strip or border, from a Germanic root that also gave English the edge of a piece of cloth. The sense of a roll of names probably grew out of the idea of a written strip or column of entries. So a person who is disenlisted has been struck from a line on a page, and the metaphor of the strip stands behind both the joining and the undoing.