Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To undo or ravel the knitted fabric of.
- v. To separate (entangled threads).
- v. To separate and clarify the elements of (something mysterious or baffling); solve. See Synonyms at solve.
- v. To become unraveled.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To disentangle or separate, as threads; especially, to take out the threads of (textile material). See ravel.
- To clear from complication or difficulty; unriddle; unfold.
- To separate the connected or united parts of; throw into disorder.
- To unfold or bring to a denouement, as the plot or intrigue of a play.
- To be unfolded; be disentangled.
Wiktionary
- v. to separate the threads (of)
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To disentangle; to disengage or separate the threads of.
- v. Hence, to clear from complication or difficulty; to unfold; to solve.
- v. To separate the connected or united parts of; to throw into disorder; to confuse.
- v. To become unraveled, in any sense.
WordNet 3.0
- v. become or cause to become undone by separating the fibers or threads of
- v. become undone
- v. disentangle.
Examples
“Quite why she told a lie which was always going to unravel is a bit of a puzzle.”
“Nursing a strange psychiatric history and one it's difficult to unravel from the heroin addiction, a chicken-egg situation, but whatever the conclusions Anna Kavan's psyche seems to have been all a bit of a debilitating muddle.”
“Watching the Brubaker familys lives unravel is the best way to see the stuff from which theyre really made.”
Present Value: Summary and book reviews of Present Value by Sabin Willett.
“Either the New Deal has to unravel, which is what we hope for, or else the authoritarians”
“Nuevelle said she began to "unravel" during an argument in which she said that Albert threatened to use her authority to make sure Nuevelle never saw her own son again.”
The Washington Post: D.C. judge's ex-girlfriend gets 5 years in prison
“What the AP should have focused on were the results that showed that their reporting yesterday about the Bush Administration beginning to "unravel" in the eyes of the American public was as accurate as it could be.”
“The ensuing scandal threatened, in the words of Federal Judge Jack B. Weinstein, to "unravel" the remaining 60 "War" cases.”
Peter Lance: Feds Move Terrorist Close to Key Murder Witness
“By "unravel" they mean he becomes violent and shoots people.”
“KING: What's it like to have your whole life kind of unravel before people?”
“And what we need to do is kind of unravel that and get as much information as possible.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘unravel’.
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movement (fast)
words describing fast action or movement
( randomness, descriptive )hurry, run, scamper, skip, stride, stampede, trample, scramble, dart, spring, spin, sprint and 140 more...
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movement (slow)
words describing slow action or movement
( randomness, descriptive )creep, crawl, plod, slouch, idle, lumber, tiptoe, bend, amble, mosey, saunter, loiter and 117 more...
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Unverbs
Funnily, 'un-VERBs' are much less common as stand-alone units than in suffixed derivatives (unbelievable - but *unbelieve, unexpectedly - but *unexpect, uninsured - but *uninsure, etc.) Can you fin...
unbox, unpack, unlike, unveil, unlink, uncover, unfold, undo, unamen, unadorn, unalign, unbound and 16 more...
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