unpack

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   remove from its packing

   unpack the presents

2. 2
   verb

   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.

3. 3
   verb

   To empty containers that had been packed.

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

4. 4
   verb

   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.

5. 5
   verb

   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, […]

6. 6
   verb

   To decompress (data).

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

Etymology

From Middle English unpakken, equivalent to un- + pack. Compare Saterland Frisian uutpakje (“to unpack”), West Frisian útpakke (“to unpack”), Dutch uitpakken (“to unpack”), German auspacken (“to unpack”).