Dictionary

unmould en · VERB

Etymology

From un- + mould.

Meanings

1. (transitive) To remove from a mould.
   • I used a small glass bowl that I filled to the brim, an important point for you do not want the concoction to fall apart when you unmould it. 2009, Sylvia Tan, Taste: Healthy, Hearty Asian Recipes, page 41:
   • place weight on top and when chilled unmould and garnish with watercress or sprigs of parsley . 1900, Anna Morrison, “Special Christmas Dishes”, in The Delineator, volume 56, page 751:
   • A biodegradable oil and water emulsion release composition for facilitating the unmoulding of hydraulic bonding material comprises , as the oil component , an ester of a hindered polyhydric alcohol having no hydrogen atoms attached to any carbon atom in a beta - position to any hydroxyl group and a straight or branched chain, saturated or unsaturated C4 to C24 monocarboxylic acid. 2002, David Packham, Mould Sticking, Fouling and Cleaning - Volume 13, page 69:
   • Make sure soaps are completely cold and set before attempting to unmould them . 2015, Elaine Stavert, Scented Soaps, page 14:
2. (transitive) To change the form of; to reduce or unmake from any form.
   • and the restless elements of opinion, throughout every region of debate, moulding themselves eternally, like the billowy sands of the desert, as beheld by Bruce, into towering columns that soar upwards to a giddy altitude, then stalk about for a minute, all a-glow with fiery color, and finally unmould and 'dislimn,' with a collapse as sudden as the motions of that eddying breeze, under which their vapory architecture arose. 1859, Thomas De Quincey, De Quincey's Writings: Literary reminiscences, page 231:
   • Wipe out the paints, unmould the clay. Let nothing remain of that yesterday.' 2011, Kamala Das, My Story, page 83:
   • Time takes out the sting of pain; our sorrows after a certain period have been so often steeped in a medium of though and passion, that they 'unmould their essence;' and all that remains of our original impressions is what we would wish them to have been. 2020, Duncan Wu, Tom Paulin, David Bromwich, The Selected Writings of William Hazlitt:
   • Unmoulding reason's mintage. 1634 October 9 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC:

Forms