ravel

¹ American  

[rav-uhl] / ˈræv əl /

verb (used with object)

raveled, raveling, ravelled, ravelling

1. to disentangle or unravel the threads or fibers of (a woven or knitted fabric, rope, etc.).

2. to tangle or entangle.

3. to involve; confuse; perplex.

4. to make clear; unravel (often followed byout ).

---

verb (used without object)

raveled, raveling, ravelled, ravelling

1. to become disjoined thread by thread or fiber by fiber; fray.

2. to become tangled.

3. to become confused or perplexed.

4. (of a road surface) to lose aggregate.

noun

1. a tangle or complication.

Ravel ² American  

[ruh-vel, ra-vel] / rəˈvɛl, raˈvɛl /

noun

1. Maurice Joseph 1875–1937, French composer.

---

ravel ¹ British  

/ ˈrævəl /

verb

1. to tangle (threads, fibres, etc) or (of threads, fibres, etc) to become entangled

2. (often foll by out) to tease or draw out (the fibres of a fabric or garment) or (of a garment or fabric) to fray out in loose ends; unravel

3. to disentangle or resolve

   to ravel out a complicated story

4. to break up (a road surface) in patches or (of a road surface) to begin to break up; fret; scab

5. archaic to make or become confused or complicated

---

noun

1. a tangle or complication

Ravel ² British  

/ ravɛl /

noun

1. Maurice ( Joseph ) (mɔris). 1875–1937, French composer, noted for his use of unresolved dissonances and mastery of tone colour. His works include Gaspard de la Nuit (1908) and Le Tombeau de Couperin (1917) for piano, Boléro (1928) for orchestra, and the ballet Daphnis et Chloé (1912)

---

Other Word Forms

• raveler noun
• raveller noun
• ravelly adjective

Etymology

Origin of ravel

First recorded in 1575–85, ravel is from the Dutch word rafelen

Explanation

Ravel is a contronym, a word that has two meanings that are the opposite of each other. Confusingly, ravel can mean both "tangle" and "untangle." It's perfectly understandable to tangle up the meanings of ravel! If you work to ravel yarn into a neat ball, your cat may come along and try to ravel it again. How can a word mean both one thing and its opposite? In the case of ravel, the answer is sewing: As threads come unwoven from a cloth, they become tangled on each other. Since untangling is never far from tangling, ravel covers both meanings.

Example Sentences

Grealish is particularly fond of tools that allow cohosters to get even more creative with their posts, like ravel by artist and game designer Everest Pipkin, which enables the interactive fiction tool Twine in cohost.

From The Verge • Aug. 3, 2022

“Hence, ravel; a tool that does the fiddly nesting together of details and summary tags for you.”

From The Verge • Aug. 3, 2022

Danny Lavery: Let’s ravel up some sleaves of care today!

From Slate • Apr. 26, 2021

The discovery of these so-called restriction enzymes promises to help un ravel the mysteries of cell development, hereditary disease and cancer.

From Time Magazine Archive

There was a yarn snowman that Courtney had made when a Brownie, it was gray now, and beginning to ravel.

From "The Great Gilly Hopkins" by Katherine Paterson