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
With steel wire, always before working it, put a stop on at the place to which you intend to unlay, and also put a good whipping of twine at the end of each strand.
From Knots, Bends, Splices With tables of strengths of ropes, etc. and wire rigging by Jutsum, J. Netherclift
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.
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 Forestier, A.
"Well, Mister Paine," he cried, sarcastically stressing the title, "are n't you man enough to unlay a bit of rope and make a Flemish eye?"
From The Mutineers by Hawes, Charles Boardman
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
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
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
The thought of it hovered, a ghost unlaid, in both their minds.
From The Testing of Diana Mallory by Ward, Humphry, Mrs.
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 Jutsum, J. Netherclift
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 Jutsum, J. Netherclift
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 Hutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth)
Boston found a sounding-rod in the locker, which he scraped bright with his knife, then, unlaying a strand of the rope for a line, sounded the pump-well.
From Great Sea Stories by French, Joseph Lewis
But then he took a three-strand hawser and laid this over the tobacco, so that when the hawser was finished no one could suspect the tobacco without first cutting or unlaying the rope.
From King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 by Chatterton, E. Keble (Edward Keble)
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.
