Untwine

//ʌnˈtwʌɪn// verb

verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To untwist the strands of (something entwined). transitive

    "The rope must be then untwined and the middle of each strand laid across the top and stitched down along the pencil line, half the length falling on one side, half on the other."

  2. 2
    undo what has been twined together wordnet
  3. 3
    To free (one thing that is entwined with another), disentangle, extricate. transitive

    "Woe to the revolutionist who is not himself a creature of the revolution! If he anticipate, he is lost; for it requires, what no individual can supply, a long and powerful counter-sympathy in a nation to untwine the ties of custom which bind a people to the established and the old."

  4. 4
    To become untwisted or disentangled. intransitive

    "As the tangled mass of men untwined, following the blast of the whistle, Sage heard Stone calling in his ear […]"

Synonyms

All synonyms
clarifyclearclear updisembarrassdisembroildisencumber

Example

More examples

"The rope must be then untwined and the middle of each strand laid across the top and stitched down along the pencil line, half the length falling on one side, half on the other."

Etymology

From un- + twine.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.