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unravel

[uhn-rav-uhl]

Example Sentences Origin

verb (used with object)

to separate or disentangle the threads of (a woven or knitted fabric, a rope, etc.).

to free from complication or difficulty; make plain or clear; solve: to unravel a situation; to unravel a mystery.

Informal. to take apart; undo; destroy (a plan, agreement, or arrangement).

verb (used without object)

to become unraveled.

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Unravel is one of our favorite verbs.

So is absquatulate. Does it mean:

to steal or take dishonestly (money, esp. public funds, or property entrusted to one's care); embezzle.

to flee; abscond:

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Origin:
1595–1605; un-² + ravel

Related forms

un·rav·el·er; especially British, un·rav·el·ler, noun

un·rav·el·ment, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To unravel

Example Sentences

Soon after arriving, the promises made and the perceptions presented at the interview began to unravel.

Any reverse could unravel the political system they have created.

If that happens, the forest's ecology will begin to unravel.

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Soon after arriving, the promises made and the perceptions presented at the interview began to unravel.

Any reverse could unravel the political system they have created.

If that happens, the forest's ecology will begin to unravel.

New findings are helping to unravel why this is the case.

But for the archaeologists seeking to unravel its secrets, the clock is ticking.

Unravel the edges and bend the strands through the existing screen until they're interwoven.

Acquaintance is the tool humans use to draw inferences, to unravel ambiguities and fill in missing information.

The well-planned fantasy of my first pregnancy began to unravel during delivery.

Things go in, and things come out, but what happens in between is hard to unravel.

Hoham's work is beginning to unravel the mysteries of snow algae.

Researchers unravel some long-standing mysteries of bar-headed geese, the world's highest-flying birds.

But attempts to unravel that history have produced many interpretations and arguments.

Now they'll stay separate and unravel quickly and tangle-free.

We may be at the point where that effort to blend the two has begun to unravel.

It has sought to unravel its predecessor's lauded health and pension reforms, and to put more restrictions on retailers.

The discovery could help scientists unravel the brain processes behind delusions of paranoia, persecution, and alien control.

Further measurements of sea level height, water temperature and salinity should help scientists unravel the mystery of the bulge.

The lab is hoping outsiders will help them unravel the clues.

So unravel your panties over the idea of all these fatcat hypocrite rich marxist professors.

Doubtless some arithmetical compromise can be forged, but the delay means that agreements on other issues may well unravel.

It also helped unravel longstanding mysteries such as exactly how ozone degrades and rust forms.

But the money and technology required to unravel these genomes tower over those needed for the simple thale cress.

We will have to wait a bit longer to unravel that mystery.

It could all unravel to the point where no one wants to hold any sterling at all.

These data allowed them to unravel clues about how each society was organized.

For decades, neuroscientists have attempted to unravel how the brain makes memories.

It's a mystery that scientists have been working to unravel over several decades.

Only after his execution did the story start to unravel.

Brower and several other scientists have spent years trying to unravel this mystery.

One of the first puzzles the new hydrogen telescopes are seeking to unravel is the manner in which our galaxy is rotating.

And so far it hasn't had an easy time trying to unravel the universe's mysteries.

The sleeve and leg end-zippers also allow you to unravel the suit when it gets warm.

How fluoride keeps the tooth fairy away is a mystery that researchers are still working to unravel.

Biologists are still trying to unravel these secrets.

Let's face it, if all the poor people in the world were to get reach our standards then it would unravel.

And yet, something even more incredible and disturbing awaited scientists attempting to unravel the anglerfish's mating practices.

Maybe empathy keeps negotiators from making bad deals that will unravel later.

The lives of three desperate teenagers unravel in a docudrama based on.

But it can be as hard to unravel the politics played out behind.

Sauropods were humongous creatures, but how they got so large is a mystery that paleontologists are still trying to unravel.

He comes to a deserted village and begins to unravel a story of love.

It is a challenging but a wonderful undertaking to be able to unravel and write your own history.

Biotechnologists are thus understandably eager to unravel their every secret:.

The new model is roughly eight times more accurate than previous attempts to unravel complex bird songs.

And it may help unravel the many mysteries about how such jets.

Twisting vortices seen in fireballs could unravel matter-antimatter conundrum.

But sooner or later, the system was bound to unravel.

Watson saw the chemical structure he once helped to unravel now pieced into a personal genetic landscape that lay before him.

But companies' finances have become much harder to unravel.

And if scientists can unravel what underlies these biological.

Despite the confusion, the spin isn't too hard to unravel.

Watson saw the chemical structure he once helped unravel now fused into a personal genetic landscape laid out before him.

Which isn't to say science won't one day unravel that mystery.

She must also think quickly and imaginatively to overcome obstacles and unravel the mystery behind the paintings.

Ultimately it will take data from a combination of methods to help unravel the mystery, the experts said.

But there are always more secrets to unravel and always room for yet another introduction.

They are the things that are unraveling, and will unravel the whole thing if left unattended.

The findings could help unravel how the compulsion characteristic of addiction takes shape in the brain.

Then as now, academics and pundits worried that civilization was beginning to unravel.

All this is rather suggestive of a large test program to unravel the synesthetic roles of individual senses in specific tasks.

Little had dreamed of being able to unravel the precise relationship between an observed trait and its hidden hereditary cause.

To unravel their taxonomic threads is no simple task:.

These novel materials could help unravel one of the biggest mysteries in science-how exactly the high-temperature versions work.

This, of course, will take scientific minds to unravel the how to scenario.

Scientists unravel a portion of the mystery in the creation and viola they are above the creator, know it alls.

The housing boom began to unravel and now threatens an economy-wide bust.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

unravel (ʌnˈræv^əl)

—vb , (US) -els, -elling, -elled, -els, -eling, -eled
1.	(tr) to reduce (something knitted or woven) to separate strands
2.	(tr) to undo or untangle (something tangled or knotted)
3.	(tr) to explain or solve: the mystery was unravelled
4.	(intr) to become unravelled

un'raveller

—n

un'ravelment

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

unravel

c.1600, from un- (2) + ravel.

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Related Words

decipher frazzle

unknit unweave

Matching Quote

"From the foundation of a wooden observatory ... we could see Monadnock, in simple grandeur, in the northwest, rising nearly a thousand feet higher, still the "far blue mountain," though with an altered profile. The first day the weather was so hazy that it was in vain we endeavored to unravel the obscurity. It was like looking into the sky again, and the patches of forest here and there seemed to flit like clouds over a lower heaven. As to voyagers of an aerial Polynesia, the earth seemed like a larger island in the ether; on every side, even as low as we, the sky shutting down, like an unfathomable deep, around it, a blue Pacific island, where who knows what islanders inhabit? and as we sail near its shores we see the waving of trees and hear the lowing of kine."

-Henry David Thoreau

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