Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive & intransitive verb To spread or open (something) out or become spread or opened out.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To spread or shake out from a furled state, as a sail or a flag.
  • Figuratively, to disclose; display.
  • To be spread out or expanded; open to the wind.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • verb To loose from a furled state; to unfold; to expand; to open or spread

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To unroll or release something that had been rolled up, typically a sail or a flag.
  • verb To roll out or debut anything.
  • verb To turn out or unfold; to evolve; to progress.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb unroll, unfold, or spread out or be unrolled, unfolded, or spread out from a furled state

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Maybe I'm inured from years of baseball games and seeing the red, white, and blue unfurl from the Symphony Hall ceiling every time the Pops plays "The Stars and Stripes Forever," but any flag that every side can convincingly wrap itself in doesn't bug me that much, Eddie Izzard's warnings notwithstanding.

    Amo, lloro, canto, sueño Matthew Guerrieri 2007

  • Maybe I'm inured from years of baseball games and seeing the red, white, and blue unfurl from the Symphony Hall ceiling every time the Pops plays "The Stars and Stripes Forever," but any flag that every side can convincingly wrap itself in doesn't bug me that much, Eddie Izzard's warnings notwithstanding.

    Archive 2007-11-01 Matthew Guerrieri 2007

  • Then Barbara Bush is called in, and as she straddles Rush's face and looses the girdle, her two labia "unfurl" and reach "halfway down to her knees, like some big ball-less scrotum" ...

    aimless, aimless subradar 2005

  • The bonnie flags were a 'unfurl'd, a gallant sight to see,

    The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century Various

  • In his 80-page Dentologia: A Poem on the Diseases of the Teeth and their Proper Remedies (1833) Solyman Brown, a New Englander, dentist and graduate of Yale, sought to offer reassurance, though his lines nevertheless unfurl a gloomy vista:

    The chair 2009

  • It was good mental exercise, sitting still and letting the world unfurl.

    One Year’s Worth of Woe « A Fly in Amber 2009

  • While the Jewish DPs strove to rebuild their shattered lives and played a critical role in the struggle to establish the State of Israel, the non-Jewish DPs had no clear ideological or other mission other than to exist while waiting, mostly passively, for the next chapter of their lives to unfurl.

    Menachem Rosensaft: Review: The Long Road Home, The Aftermath of the Second World War Menachem Rosensaft 2011

  • This is not to say that Conn's history wanders from its purpose -- to unfurl the many writers producing work in the 1930s.

    Joe Woodward: Occup(ied) America: A Literary History Joe Woodward 2011

  • While the Jewish DPs strove to rebuild their shattered lives and played a critical role in the struggle to establish the State of Israel, the non-Jewish DPs had no clear ideological or other mission other than to exist while waiting, mostly passively, for the next chapter of their lives to unfurl.

    Menachem Rosensaft: Review: The Long Road Home, The Aftermath of the Second World War Menachem Rosensaft 2011

  • Speculation is rife that the Fed chief could unfurl new measures to stimulate the economy.

    Yen Slips After Japan Moves to Rein It In Javier E. David 2011

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