untwine

[uhn-twahyn]

verb (used with or without object)

untwined, untwining 

1. to bring or come out of a twined condition.

Other Word Forms

• untwineable adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of untwine¹

1300–50; Middle English untwinen; un- ², twine ¹

Example Sentences

Legs — how many? whose? — twine and untwine, a meticulous confusion of limbs.

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“To untwine it to one aspect of it diminishes the other, and I don’t want to do that. It’s the totality of it. It’s the gestalt of it.”

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It would be difficult to untwine the system by which we measured much of the past 80 years — but that isn’t really New Zealand’s goal.

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We know how these stories usually end once they untwine.

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The fierce grudges over historical persecution and a thousand perceived national and cultural slights cannot be untwined from the sports for many Koreans.

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Related Words

• detach 
• disengage 
• emancipate 
• extricate 
• unravel 
• unscramble 
• untangle 
• untie