Unpack
verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 To remove from a package or container, particularly with respect to items that had previously been arranged closely and securely in a pack. transitive
"They didn't have time to unpack their bags before going out to dinner."
- 2 remove from its packing wordnet
- 3 To empty containers that had been packed. intransitive
"They didn't have time to unpack before going to dinner."
- 4 To analyze a concept or a text; to explain. figuratively, transitive
"There may be another argument here, if we had time to unpack it, about modernism and the rise of the middle classes."
- 5 To undergo separation of its features into distinct segments. intransitive
"The rounded vowels [y] and [œ/ə] in Russian seem to unpack as glide-vowel sequences in words borrowed from French and German, […]"
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- 6 To decompress (data). transitive
"Packages […] are often archived and compressed using the zip utility; you can unpack these with the unzip command[…]"
Example
More examples""Let's meet up outside for a date." "If you've got that much free time come and help unpack!""
Etymology
From Middle English unpakken, equivalent to un- + pack. Compare Saterland Frisian uutpakje (“to unpack”), West Frisian útpakke (“to unpack”), Dutch uitpakken (“to unpack”), German auspacken (“to unpack”).