Search the Dictionary

To explain; to unfold. [Obs.] Like Solon's self explatest the knotty laws. B. Jonson.

Evolved; unfolded. Jer. Taylor.

The act of opening, unfolding, or explaining; explanation; exposition; interpretation. The explication of our Savior's parables. Atterbury.

Serving to unfold or explain; tending to lay open to the understanding; explanatory. Sir W. Hamilton.

One who unfolds or explains; an expounder; an explainer.

To unfold leaves, as plants.

The time at which each species of plants unfolds its leaves.

torment or distress; to vex. My aged muscles harrowed up with whips. Rowe. I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul. Shak.

Unfolding the signification; of or pertaining to interpretation; exegetical; explanatory; as, hermeneutic theology, or the art of expounding the Scriptures; a hermeneutic phrase.

Color or shade of color; tint; dye. "Flowers of all hue." Milton. Hues of the rich unfolding morn. Keble.

A flowering; the putting forth and unfolding of blossoms.

Detail or amplification; unfolding; continuance as, to pursue a subject to a great length. May Heaven, great monarch, still augment your bliss. With length of days and every day like this. Dryden.

To unfold and spread out the wings, like a mantle; -- said of hawks. Also used figuratively. Ne is there hawk which mantleth on her perch. Spenser. Or tend his sparhawk mantling in her mew. Bp. Hall. My frail fancy fed with full delight. Doth bathe in bliss, and mantleth most at ease. Spenser.

that at the time of fecundation the spermatozoa simply gave the impetus which caused the unfolding of the egg, in which all generations were inclosed one within the other. Also called ovist.

Folded; doubled over; braided; figuratively, involved; intricate; artful. Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides. Shak.

plan of a constitution; the plan of an expedition. God's plans like lines pure and white unfold. M. R. Smith.

play, novel, romance, or poem, comprising a complication of incidents which are gradually unfolded, sometimes by unexpected means. If the plot or intrigue must be natural, and such as springs from the subject, then the winding up of the plot must be a probable consequence of all that went before. Pope.…

import; - - often with an object clause or infinitive. They in most grave and solemn wise unfolded Matter which little purported. Rowe.

A collection of twenty-four sheets of paper of the same size and quality, unfolded or having a single fold; one twentieth of a ream.

A means or method of resisting; that which resists. Unfold to us some warlike resistance. Shak.