unravel

verb

1. (transitive)To cause (something) to no longer be ravelled or tangled; to disentangle, to untangle.

   “Mother couldn’t unravel the ball of wool after the cat had played with it.”

   “[S]he taking as the watchword of his true patience, vnraueld the bottome [i.e., ball of thread] of her frailtie at length, […]”

   “So by thine offspring may repose be found, / As thou unravelest (thus to him I pray) / The knot in which my intellect is bound.”

   “He was only aware that everything was over, that with a few words he had broken his life into small pieces. Too impatient to unravel the tangled knot, he had cut it, and nothing could mend it now.”

2. (transitive)To separate the threads of (something knitted or woven, such as clothing or fabric).

   “Stop playing with the seam of the tablecloth! You’ll unravel it.”

   “[B]e not like her who unravelleth into strands the thread which she had strongly spun, by taking your oaths with mutual perfidy.”

3. (figuratively, transitive)To separate the connected or united parts of (something); to throw (something) into disorder; to confound, to confuse, to disintegrate.

   “to unravel the broad consensus which was created”

   “to unravel the compromise achieved in the treaty”

   “VVithin fifteen dayes, aſſiſted vvith the Duke of Spoletum, Frederick recovered all vvhich vvas vvonne from him, and unravelled the fair vveb of John Brens victory, even to the very hemme thereof.”

   “Art ſhall be Conjur'd for it, / And Nature all unravel'ed.”

   “[I]t is easier to conceive a low motive than a lofty one, and to call a man a villain, than to unravel patiently the tangled web of good and evil of which his thoughts are composed.”

4. (also, figuratively, reflexive, transitive)To clear (something) from complication or difficulty; to investigate and solve (a mystery, a problem, etc.); to disentangle, to unfold, to work out.

   “to unravel the confusion    to unravel a plot”

   “You muſt unravell agen, and make your vvife / Beleeve you did but try her.”

   “[H]e [Nicarchus] diſputed beſt, and unravell'd the difficulties of Philoſophy vvith moſt ſuccess vvhen he vvas at Supper, and vvell vvarm'd vvith VVine.”

   “The preſent Argument is the moſt abſtracted that ever I engaged in, it ſtrains my Faculties to their higheſt Stretch; and I deſire the Reader to attend with utmoſt perpenſity; For, I now proceed to unravel this knotty Point.”

5. (figuratively, obsolete, transitive)To reverse or undo (something); to annul, to negate.

   “For everie time thou admitſt mee after, to thy / Pillovv, I'le ſtrike of an hundred pound, / Till all the debts be unravel'd: […]”

   “O thou cruel Son of an / Inhumane Father! all my deſigns are ruin'd / And unravell'd by this blovv. / No pleaſure novv is left in me but Revenge.”

   “I vviſh they vvould ſeriouſly reflect on it, and unravel that injurious mirth by a penitential ſadneſs, and either ſpend their time better then in viſiting, or elſe direct their viſits to better purpoſes: […]”

   “I do not find that Henry [VIII] puſhed his imitation ſo far; but though at laſt He vvofully unravelled moſt of the purſuits of his early age, […]”

   “Becauſe the canon lavv (follovving the civil) did allovv ſuch baſtard eignè to be legitimate, on the ſubſequent marriage of his mother: and therefore the lavvs of England […] paid ſuch a regard to a perſon thus peculiarly circumſtanced, that, after the land had deſcended to his iſſue, they vvould not unravel the matter again, and ſuffer his eſtate to be ſhaken.”

6. (intransitive)To become no longer ravelled or tangled.
7. (intransitive)Of threads: to become separated from something knitted or woven, such as clothing or fabric; also, of something knitted or woven: to separate into threads; to come apart.

   “[C]onſider him as a King, and what favours hath he beſtowed on his Subjects! and then, that his curteſies might not unravell or fret out, hath bound them with a ſtrong border and a rich fringe, a Triennial Parliament.”

   “[T]he burning threads / Of woven cloud unravel in pale air: […]”

   “Almost everyone has a favorite doll, an aging teddy, or an unraveling blankie—either safely put away in a drawer or still lovingly tucked into bed at night. Adults and children alike treasure these creature comforts because they offer security, lifelong friendship, and the smell of home.”

   “Across the aisle, she was absentmindedly fiddling with a loose piece of yarn that had unraveled from her sweater, wrapping it around her finger the same way Derek was wrapped around her finger. And she didn't even know it. Hoo-boy. She killed him.”

   “The yarn baby lasted a good month, emitting dry, cotton-soft gurgles and pooping little balls of lint, before Ogechi snagged its thigh on a nail and it unravelled as she continued walking, mistaking its little huffs for the beginnings of hunger, not the cries of an infant being undone.”

8. (figuratively, intransitive)Of a thing: to have its connected or united parts separated; to be thrown into disorder; to become confused or undone; to collapse.

   “[W]hen men doe not iſhue out of a danger by a doore of Gods opening unto them, but breake through the vvall, (as Jerome by perjury) by violent and unvvarrantable vvayes, their minds are daily haunted vvith ſcruples and perplexities, even ſometimes to dolefull diſtraction; beſides, ſuch eſcapes never grovv proſperous, rather eaſing than curing, and the comfort got by them unraueleth againe, as it hapned in Jerome of Prague.”

   “[Y]ou may be ſure his [the Antichrist's] cunning and vvicked Emiſſaries vvill unfailingly aſſiſt, actuate and manage this Schiſm above all the reſt, it making the Reformation look ſo odiouſly, ridiculouſly and dangerouſly, as if to leave the Church of Rome vvere at laſt to unravel into a mere canting Paganiſm.”

   “In an Eternity, vvhat Scenes ſhall ſtrike? / Adventures thicken? Novelties ſurprize? / VVhat VVebs of VVonder ſhall unravel, there?”

   “As if someone had cut the key string of a net, they all unravelled and disappeared—those tranquillities.”

   “To be sure, 2012 marks an emphatic end to the bygone courtesy of allowing the other campaign to have its convention moment. But the traditional nicety began unraveling at least two or three election cycles ago.”