The first recorded use of
uninstall known to the OED was in 1981, but it became more frequently used around the late 1990s. It's mostly used in connection with uninstalling software programs, but it can also refer to hardware, e.g. uninstalling a printer. It's quite rarely used in a non-technology context, as in this from a piece in the New Yorker last October about the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel:
...my older sister...busy uninstalling Giacomettis from the walls of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, where she works, for safekeeping amid the rocket fire.
It seems to be widely enough known to be accepted as a common word. However, the variant with one
L, although listed as an option by dictionary.com, is very rarely used - the double-
L version is several hundred times more popular it seems.
I'll add
uninstall,
uninstalling and
uninstalled as common words, and
uninstal as a rare word.
Currently
instal and
install are both classed as common, but it appears that
instal is a very rarely used spelling, so maybe that should change. Any thoughts?
