On January 8th 2001 the American Telephone and Telegraph Company agreed to give up its 22 local Bell System companies, 80 percent of its assets. We mark the AT&T divestiture with a look at some terms we use to talk about taking away.

To divest is to deprive or dispossess of property, authority, or title. Divesting is used to indicate a taking off or taking away of whatever is vested in someone or something as a distinction or mark of special privilege or treatment; divest also can mean rid or free. A wanderer may first divest himself of his possessions, and AT&T may be divested of its Baby Bells.

Stripping has a different connotation. That term implies a pulling or tearing off or a rapid or thorough depriving of a covering, investment, or furnishing. A speech may be stripped of its emotional overtones, and a bed may be stripped of its linens.

Divesting may be a deliberate process, and stripping may be rapid, but both activities involve deprivation. To deprive simply means to take something away from. Why not use dispossess? That term usually applies to a removing or dislodging of a person in usually illegitimate possession, less often implies a depriving of possessions, and only sometimes implies a deprivation of rights, qualities, or properties.