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Synonyms

unloose

American  
[uhn-loos] / ʌnˈlus /

verb (used with object)

unloosed, unloosing
  1. to loosen or relax (the grasp, hold, fingers, etc.).

  2. to let loose or set free; free from restraint.

  3. to undo or untie (a fastening, knot, etc.); unfasten.


unloose British  
/ ʌnˈluːs /

verb

  1. to set free; release

  2. to loosen or relax (a hold, grip, etc)

  3. to unfasten or untie

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of unloose

1325–75; Middle English unloosen; see un- 2, loose

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:

I unloose the cow and leave her and her newborn to each other.

From The Guardian Mar. 22, 2018

And in a way this has stifled exactly the sort of catharsis the play is supposed to unloose.

From The Guardian Sep. 3, 2014

In the equivalent of flight attendants becoming pilots, caddies became players seven days a week, not merely on Monday mornings, when the clubs where they worked might unloose them onto largely vacant courses.

From New York Times Apr. 10, 2010

For seven humid, wakeful nights, the crash of thunder and flash of lightning had kept the cariocas awake, and the superstitious among them wondered if the gods of darkness had decided to unloose their wrath.

From Time Magazine Archive

The continents strain to unloose themselves, to drift reckless and heavy in the seas.

From "Dreaming in Cuban" by Cristina García

Here is a novel to hate and to love, to make you feel simultaneously disgusted and unloosed.

From Washington Post Oct. 26, 2021

The right to have the stays of gender unloosed, the right to breathe.

From The Guardian Dec. 8, 2018

Try as the author might to feel affinity for the unloosed and the wandering, it doesn't always happen.

From Los Angeles Times Oct. 15, 2015

Out it pours: the song unloosed by her maddened craving for Fielder—by no means the first wastrel, in history, for whose sake a thing of beauty has been wrought.

From The New Yorker Jul. 1, 2015

This soon became clear when a platoon of otters on the ramparts unloosed a rattling fusillade of heavy pebbles.

From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques

And, in the San Francisco Bay Area, burrowing rodents may be digging into entombed trash at a landfill-turned-park, unloosing explosive levels of methane.

From Los Angeles Times Nov. 19, 2025

But, unfortunately, if the contagion spreads to all the elements of our planet, the consequences of unloosing such a cataclysm can only be viewed with apprehension.

From Salon Aug. 12, 2023

She started to think about how she could craft a fuller version of Iphigenia, perhaps by unloosing more of her internal monologue, and even by refusing to present her as a single, straightforward character.

From New York Times Nov. 2, 2021

The effect has been an unloosing of hysteria upon the land.

From Washington Post Jul. 3, 2018

"Impossible," replies he coldly, unloosing her fingers from his arm, all the dislike and loathing of which he is capable compressed into the word.

From Molly Bawn by Hamilton, Margaret Wolfe

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