unlay
Americanverb (used with object)
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to separate (a strand) from a rope.
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to untwist (a rope) in order to separate its strands.
verb
Etymology
Origin of unlay
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
They're not suddenly going to press the rewind button and totally unlay you off.
From Time Magazine Archive
I’ve on’y got to unlay this piece o’ rope—it’s nearly new—and then I can twist up yards o’ line.”
From Nic Revel A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land by William H. C. Groome
For some time our main-mast stood without larboard shrouds, till we could unlay our best cable to make more, having knotted and spliced the old shrouds till our labour was in vain.
To make you a Flemish eye," Captain Falk continued in cold sarcasm, "you unlay the end of the rope and open up the yarns.
From The Mutineers by Charles Boardman Hawes
Suppose you and Widgeon try to unlay one of the sail-ropes and make a fishing-line.”
From Mother Carey's Chicken Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle by A. Forestier
Kerry Perkins, an aquarist at the Sea Life aquarium in Brighton, said a four-year fast was a possibility, but noted that the octopus may have got nutrients from unlaid eggs or very occasional, unobserved titbits.
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2014
An X-ray device has been developed which tells genuine from imitation leather, and which reveals the minutest internal details of insects, down to embryonic skeletons in unlaid eggs.
From Time Magazine Archive
Hertz, made of weaker stuff than Hoff, tries to persuade him to do as he himself has done: to compromise, to live with unlaid ghosts.
From Time Magazine Archive
Returning later and finding the wire unlaid, Templer picked up the telephone and called the Public Works Department.
From Time Magazine Archive
Passing its closed gates daily, I was always sensible of a qualm of the spirit, a daunting prescience that the stilled mansion still harbored the ghost of an unlaid secret.
From From a Bench in Our Square by Samuel Hopkins Adams
He held out the wet end of the rope, showing how it was neatly bound with copper-wire to keep it from fraying out and unlaying.
From Sappers and Miners The Flood beneath the Sea by Hal Hurst
He hung for a moment over the side, twisted himself back in a strong effort to regain his balance, and incautiously planted his foot inside the unlaying coil.
From Jim Spurling, Fisherman or Making Good by Albert Walter Tolman
An Eye Splice is formed by unlaying the end of a rope for a short distance, and then, after closing up the end, to form an eye of the desired size.
From Knots, Bends, Splices With tables of strengths of ropes, etc. and wire rigging by J. Netherclift Jutsum
In unlaying for a long splice, always unlay two strands simultaneously, to keep the rope in its original lay.
From Knots, Bends, Splices With tables of strengths of ropes, etc. and wire rigging by J. Netherclift Jutsum
She sealed that letter and she moved about the room unlaying and as she unlaid, destroying, all evidences, all treasures, all landmarks, all that in any way referred to or touched upon her working life.
From This Freedom by A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth) Hutchinson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
