unwreathe

• unwreath

From un- +‎ wreathe.

unwreathe (third-person singular simple present unwreathes, present participle unwreathing, simple past and past participle unwreathed)

1. (transitive) To untwist, uncoil, or untwine (something wreathed).
   • 1849, Herman Melville, Mardi: And a Voyage Thither. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:

     But sin it is, no less;—a blot, foul as the crater-pool of hell; it puts out the sun at noon; it parches all fertility; and, conscience or no conscience—ere he die—let every master who wrenches bond-babe from mother, that the nipple tear; unwreathes the arms of sisters; or cuts the holy unity in twain; till apart fall man and wife, like one bleeding body cleft

   • 1861, Sarah Parker Douglas, Poems (poem), Farewell:

     Yes, our last farewell is breathed,
     And we part, for ever part;
     Every tie is now unwreathed
     Which had bound us heart to heart;

   • 1927, Anne Douglas Sedgwick, The Old Countess, Chapter 6:

     the splendid rhythms and harmonies that wreathed and unwreathed themselves in his mind

• “unwreathe”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• unweather