unseal
Americanverb (used with object)
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unseals,
present (3rd person singular)
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unsealed,
past participle, past
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unsealing
present participle
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to break or remove the seal of; open, as something sealed or firmly closed.
to unseal a letter; to unseal a tomb.
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to free from constraint, as a person's thought, speech, or behavior.
Their friendship unsealed her vivacity.
verb
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to remove or break the seal of
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to reveal or free (something concealed or closed as if sealed)
to unseal one's lips
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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unsealsimple
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unsealssimple
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have unsealedperfect
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has unsealedperfect
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am unsealingprogressive
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are unsealingprogressive
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is unsealingprogressive
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have been unsealingperfect progressive
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has been unsealingperfect progressive
Past
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unsealedsimple
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had unsealedperfect
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was unsealingprogressive
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were unsealingprogressive
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had been unsealingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of unseal
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:
Washington officials also noticed that Clayton separately didn’t sign his name to an initial filing asking a judge to unseal grand-jury materials related to Jeffrey Epstein.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 21, 2026
ProPublica was part of a news coalition that sued to unseal the affidavit.
From Salon ● Apr. 14, 2026
It also seeks to unseal the FBI's affidavit used to obtain the warrant from a federal magistrate judge.
From Barron's ● Feb. 4, 2026
In order to unseal the Epstein documents, Congress was waiting for one last signature to put the matter to a vote.
From Slate ● Nov. 13, 2025
But for the rest, I unseal a test-strip kit.
From "The Last Cuentista" by Donna Barba Higuera
His attorney, Stacey Hegge, argued that Sanford should be able to inspect and participate in redacting the affidavits before the circuit court unseals them, to avoid any disclosure of trade secrets.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 6, 2023
Justice Department unseals charges against Huawei, Meng and several of the companies’ subsidiaries, alleging not only violation of trade sanctions but also the theft of trade secrets.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 29, 2019
September 2005: A judge unseals the Philadelphia grand jury report.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 14, 2018
He pledged Thursday not to release the alleged victims’ names or identifying information if he unseals the records.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 9, 2016
Mr. Dimming unseals the official test and opens to the first page.
From "Out of My Mind" by Sharon M. Draper
When court documents were unsealed last month it also emerged books were being destroyed in the process of training Anthropic's AI chatbot, Claude.
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
The court records were unsealed this month after ProPublica moved to make them public, with the help of attorneys from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the law firm Shaw Keller.
From Salon ● Jun. 19, 2026
The court on Monday unsealed its arrest warrant for Dela Rosa, which it said had been approved by its pretrial chamber in November.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 14, 2026
An Indian national, Radhakrishnan Karthik Nair, 47, who worked for both companies as technical superintendent for the ship, the M/V Dali, is also named in the indictment unsealed on Tuesday.
From Barron's ● May 12, 2026
The metal door unsealed and creaked open, revealing a dark staircase leading down.
From "The Battle of the Labyrinth" by Rick Riordan
Fulton County officials filed a lawsuit demanding their return and District Judge JP Boulee, a Trump nominee, ordered the unsealing on Tuesday of the search warrant affidavit used to justify the seizure.
From Barron's ● Feb. 10, 2026
Federal judges in New York and Florida have already started authorizing the unsealing of grand jury transcripts and exhibits under the new statute, including in Maxwell’s 2021 case.
From Salon ● Dec. 18, 2025
The order to publish the materials followed a similar ruling from a judge in Florida on Friday, which allowed for the unsealing of documents related to the state's investigation against Epstein that began in 2005.
From BBC ● Dec. 9, 2025
Similar unsealing requests, citing the new law, are pending before the two federal judges in New York who presided over the Epstein and Maxwell cases.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 5, 2025
She had taught him all her lore in herbals and healing, and all she knew of the crafts of finding, binding, mending, unsealing and revealing.
From "A Wizard of Earthsea" by Ursula K. Le Guin
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.
