unpack

UK /ʌnˈpæk/ US /ʌnˈpæk/
verb 5

Definitions

verb

1

To remove from a package or container, particularly with respect to items that had previously been arranged closely and securely in a pack.

They didn't have time to unpack their bags before going out to dinner.

2

To empty containers that had been packed.

They didn't have time to unpack before going to dinner.

3

To analyze a concept or a text; to explain.

There may be another argument here, if we had time to unpack it, about modernism and the rise of the middle classes.

Yet few Americans — including the president — understand how global trade works, both how it can help our economy and how some can be left behind. Let’s try to unpack a few of the complexities.

4

To undergo separation of its features into distinct segments.

The rounded vowels [y] and [œ/ə] in Russian seem to unpack as glide-vowel sequences in words borrowed from French and German, […]

Whereas the high vowels /ʏ, y/ unpack, the mid vowels /œ, ø/ are adapted as single segments in these languages (see examples in (36) for Vietnamese (Barker 1969) and (37) for Fon (Gbeto 2000)). […] French /y/ → Vietnamese /wi/ accu [a'ky] → ac-quy [ak kwi]

5

To decompress (data).

Packages […] are often archived and compressed using the zip utility; you can unpack these with the unzip command[…]

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