Unweave

v. [UN-² 3, 7. Cf. (M)Du. ontweven, OHG. antwepan (MHG. and G. entweben).]

  1.  trans. To take out of a woven, intertwined, or entangled state or condition; esp. to unravel or undo (a woven fabric).

  Freq. in fig. context, and in allusion to the story of Penelope (Odyssey, II. 96–105).

1542.  Udall, Erasm. Apoph., 63 b. Then used she this policie, to unweave in the night as much werke, as she had made up in the daye before.

1565.  Cooper, Texta soluere, to vnweaue that one hath wrought.

1592.  Shaks., Ven. & Ad., 991. Now she [sc. love] unweaves the web that she has wrought; Adonis lives.

a. 1637.  B. Jonson, Celebration of Charis, ix. 50. Nor do wrongs, nor wrongs receive, Nor tie knots, nor knots unweave.

1640.  G. Sandys, Chr. Pass., I. 81. That I should thus unweave the web of Fate.

1859.  Tennyson, Enid, 1114. She … pluck’d the grass,… And into many a listless annulet, Now over, now beneath her marriage ring, Wove and unwove it.

1875.  Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), I. 461. Weaving instead of unweaving her Penelope’s web.

  absol.  1631.  Brathwait, Eng. Gentlew., 49. Chuse rather with Penelope to weaue and vnweaue, than to giue Idlenesse the least leaue.

  fig.  a. 1625.  Fletcher, Love’s Cure, V. iii. Custom … You did unweave, and had the power to charm A new creation in me.

1634.  Heywood, Witches of Lanc., IV. G 4 b. Vnweave my age O time, to my first thread.

1820.  Keats, Lamia, II. 237. Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings,… Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine—Unweave a rainbow.

1849.  De Quincey, Eng. Mail Coach, Wks. 1862, IV. 349. Light unwove the mazes of darkness.

  b.  To untwine (the fingers).

1863.  Baring-Gould, Iceland, 271. Several of the men came up, and endeavoured to unweave the fingers [from the sword]. Ibid. (1897), Guavas, xviii. She plaited the fingers together and unwove them, to again re-plait them.

  † 2.  To make clear by exposition; to expose, disclose. Also absol. Obs.

1642.  H. More, Song of Soul, II. ii. III. xxv. They’re mixt, soild and contaminate, But truth doth clear, unweave, and simplifie.

1647.  R. Stapylton, Juvenal, 48. Dædalus, who flying viewed the whole world (if we believe the poets), or that (if we unweave their fables) made discoveries of the world by sea with his winged sailes.

  3.  intr. To become disentangled. In quot. fig.

1798.  Sotheby, trans. Wieland’s Oberon, IV. lviii. How wonderfully strange my fate unweaves!

  Hence Unweaving vbl. sb.

1706.  Stevens, Sp. Dict., Desteximiento, unweaving.

1847.  Helps, Friends in C., I. vi. 89. The sleep-inducing weavings and unweavings of political combination.

1893.  J. Pulsford, Loyalty to Christ, II. 112. What unweavings and siftings and cleansings we shall have to undergo!