Unvalidate can be devalidate.

[mdeweerd]

Unvalidate can be devalidate as in something that was validated is devalidated in the UI to allow modifications and the validated again.

[DimitriPapadopoulos]

Why would you suggest devalidate instead of unvalidate?

First the initial intent was probably to write invalidate. Then devalidate is missing from mainstream dictionaries:

• OED
• Cambridge
• Collins
• Longman
• Merriam-Webster
• Oxford Learner's

[DimitriPapadopoulos]

The Google Ngram Viewer also shows that devalidate is quite uncommon:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=invalidate%2Cdevalidate%2Cunvalidate&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019

I understand you would like to use devalidate for the specific case of check-boxes: devalidate a check-box. But then what is wrong with invalidate a check-box?

Note that if you insist on using devalidate, codespell will not show it as a typo.

[DimitriPapadopoulos]

I also tried Google searches:

• invalidate checkbox: 382,000 hits
• devalidate checkbox: 958 hits

[mdeweerd]

It's not just about invalidating a checkbox - that is in itself perfect for me.

In this case the intent is to indicate "To remove validation from" as indicated here:
https://www.wordsense.eu/devalidate/

In this case it's related to invoices:

• The order can be "draft": neither validated nor invalidated;
• The order could then be validated - it can not be changed anymore, unless,
• The order is devalidated: it returns from a validated state to a pending/draft state;
• If the order is invalidated, this means that it is not accepted/refused, the opposite of validated.

So 'devalidate' is certainly rare because in most circumstances invalidated works fine and is appropriate.

In the cases of a checkbox related to a function, we can say that we enable/disable the function or tick/untick or check/uncheck the tickbox.

If someone wrote 'unvalidate' it needs reflection to make sure which is the better replacement.

[DimitriPapadopoulos]

But that's the meaning of invalidate itself. i cannot find a dictionary that explains such a difference between invalidate/devalidate.

[DimitriPapadopoulos]

i'm not saying that the word is incorrect or that I wouldn't understand it if I saw it. However:

• The implicit rule is that we rely on mainstream curated dictionaries.
• The intent is not 100% accuracy. That's doesn't sound possible in English spellchecking, without AI and just based on plain dictionaries of word misspellings, especially if you want to take into account words coined for use in specific domains or contexts.
• I believe the intent behind occurrences of unvalidate was to use invalidate, in the vast majority of cases.

Eventually, the reference for open source English spelling is SCOWL (And Friends) and devalidate is not part of its dictionaries, even large ones.