Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To separate the twisted strands of.
- intransitive verb To disentangle.
- intransitive verb To become untwined.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To untwist; open or separate after having been twisted; untie; disentangle; hence, figuratively, to explain; solve.
- To unwind, as a vine or anything that has been twined around something else: literally or figuratively.
- To become untwined.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb To become untwined.
- transitive verb To untwist; to separate, as that which is twined or twisted; to disentangle; to untie.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To
untwist thestrands of somethingentwined - verb To
disentangle
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb undo what has been twined together
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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They started to untwine -- much quicker than the night before.
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That man was out of his truck faster than I could untwine my arms.
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Pantheon, where so many adventurers twine and untwine, but in such a way as constantly to encounter him again.
Les Miserables 2008
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He didn't move, didn't do anything that might make Liat untwine her fingers from his.
A Shadow in Summer 2006
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Five, ten, twenty meters, I struggle to untie the rope, to find the nodule that will untwine the knot, but my chafed, useless hands can grip nothing.
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He liked the scent and the taste of her, he liked the weight of her breasts, and he wanted very much to untwine that long braid and get his fingers in her hair.
The Life of the World to Come Baker, Kage 2004
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“Feeling comfortable?” she asked with some irony, and he started to untwine his hand from hers, but she trapped it in her grasp.
Surrender, Dorothy Meg Wolitzer 1999
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He felt her legs untwine themselves from about his and somehow found the energy to lift himself off her and draw her against him before closing his eyes and sinking into sleep.
A Christmas Bride Balogh, Mary 1997
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She heard his call and responded with wingéd feet, arriving upon the scene just as Eleanor Allen, Petty's bosom friend, had sprung to her side, and while in reality striving to untwine Petty's clinging arms seemed also to be in the act of embracing the French teacher.
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He could not have moved, had he attempted to do so, although somewhere deep down inside of him he felt that it was his duty to untwine those clinging arms and somehow to account for the appalling situation.
The Last Woman Ross Beeckman
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