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Definition of "unravel" []

  • To undo or ravel the knitted fabric of. (verb-transitive)
  • To separate (entangled threads). (verb-transitive)
  • To separate and clarify the elements of (something mysterious or baffling); solve. See Synonyms at solve. (verb-transitive)
  • To become unraveled. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "unravel" in a sentence
  • "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 family’s lives unravel is the best way to see the stuff from which they’re really made."