From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdefoliatede‧fo‧li‧ate /diːˈfəʊlieɪt $ -ˈfoʊ-/ verb [transitive] formal HBPto use defoliant on a plant or tree→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
defoliate• Across the river, the Viet Cong territory was a number of scalped hills: it had been defoliated.• The worst single year was 1981, when twelve million acres were defoliated.• These trees are eaten but not defoliated.• The forest had already been defoliated and the oaks and aspens were expending precious energy sending out a second flush of leaves.• The leaves are evergreen or semi-evergreen since they can be heavily defoliated in severe winters.• So far, some sixty million acres of Eastern and Midwestern forest have been defoliated over the years.• The adults defoliate plants, and the larvae feed on roots.• These same nitrogen oxides, in high but apparently plausible concentrations, will defoliate plants. 