Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Exauguratio

The act of taking away from a place or thing the sacred character which it had received by inauguratio, consecratio, or dedicatio. That such an act was performed by the augurs, and never without consulting the pleasure of the gods by augurium, is implied in the name itself (Liv.i. 55; Dionys. Hal. Antiq. Rom. iii. p. 162). Temples, chapels, and other consecrated places, as well as priests, were considered as belonging to the gods. No consecrated place whatever could be employed for any profane purpose, or dedicated to any other divinity than that to which it originally belonged, without being previously exaugurated; and priests could not give up their sacred functions, nor could a vestal virgin, after the expiration of her thirty years of service, enter into matrimony, without first undergoing the process of exauguratio (Gellius, vi. (vii.) 7.4).