Library / English Dictionary

UNRAVEL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected forms: unravelled    , unravelling   

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Become undone

Example:

the sweater unraveled

Synonyms:

run; unravel

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "unravel" is one way to...):

disintegrate (break into parts or components or lose cohesion or unity)

Verb group:

ladder; run (come unraveled or undone as if by snagging)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Derivation:

unraveller (a person who removes tangles; someone who takes something out of a tangled state)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Become or cause to become undone by separating the fibers or threads of

Example:

unravel the thread

Synonyms:

unknot; unpick; unravel; unscramble; untangle

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "unravel" is one way to...):

undo (cancel, annul, or reverse an action or its effect)

"Unravel" entails doing...:

disunite; divide; part; separate (force, take, or pull apart)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s something

Antonym:

ravel (tangle or complicate)

Derivation:

unraveler (a person who removes tangles; someone who takes something out of a tangled state)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Disentangle

Example:

can you unravel the mystery?

Synonyms:

ravel; ravel out; unravel

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "unravel" is one way to...):

disentangle; straighten out; unsnarl (extricate from entanglement)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Antonym:

ravel (tangle or complicate)

Derivation:

unraveler; unraveller (a person who removes tangles; someone who takes something out of a tangled state)

Credits

 Context examples: 

The new findings, by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) at the University of California, San Diego, moved the research team a step closer to unraveling the mysteries of this powerful group of chemical compounds, known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs).

(Bacteria living in marine sponge produce toxic compounds found in man-made products, NSF)

We had the corner of a Pullman car to ourselves that evening as we whirled back to London, and I fancy that the journey was a short one to Colonel Ross as well as to myself, as we listened to our companion’s narrative of the events which had occurred at the Dartmoor training-stables upon the Monday night, and the means by which he had unravelled them.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The new fossil helps researchers unravel extinction dynamics for predatory mammals stalking African ecosystems of that long-ago time.

(Fossil discovery in Tanzania reveals ancient bobcat-sized carnivore, National Science Foundation)

Once only had I known him to fail, in the case of the King of Bohemia and of the Irene Adler photograph; but when I looked back to the weird business of the Sign of Four, and the extraordinary circumstances connected with the Study in Scarlet, I felt that it would be a strange tangle indeed which he could not unravel.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

All my old doubts and apprehensions on that subject, all the Doctor's happiness and peace, all the mingled possibilities of innocence and compromise, that I could not unravel, I saw, in a moment, at the mercy of this fellow's twisting.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his professional investigations, and in admiring the rapid deductions, as swift as intuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis with which he unravelled the problems which were submitted to him.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)