Dictionary

unstrangle en · VERB

Etymology

From un- + strangle.

Meanings

1. To undo a constriction of the air passages, or restore to life after death by strangulation.
   • After you are seated and help your wife unstrangle herself out of her cloak and pick up her opera glass bag seven or eight times, and say, "O, my God, can't you hang on to anything?" 1913, Frank Leslie, Miriam Florence (Folline) Leslie, Ellery Sedgwick, The American Magazine - Volume 76, page 111:
   • And that's something I can't stand, never getting a second chance; it's like trying to unstrangle somebody or unslap somebody you've slapped, go stuffing kids back into their mothers. 1972, Paul West, Bela Lugosi's White Christmas, page 29:
   • get off a bus at the airways terminal, gather your luggage, chase your hat, unstrangle your scarf, and spend only half an hour (if you're lucky) trying to hail a taxi; — try to use, in succession, half a dozen of the city's three hundred or so busted public telephones. 1976, Noel Hilliard, Ans Westra, Wellington: city alive, page 19:
   • That might be all right for Shorty, who is short, but, if that long- feared "Pride of Saskatchewan," Brother Sid Neville, ever got tangled up in a knot like that it might require medical aid to unstrangle him. 1933, The Journal of Electrical Workers and Operators - Volume 32, page 127:
2. To release from something that squeezes tightly around.
   • Sores and blisters were one introduction to the world of work, and slashing at Clematis to unstrangle whippy shoots of beech, which slapped the face and stung the eyes in defiance, has left little affection for the creeper and a stoical appreciation of this irksome task. 1995, Julian Evans, A Wood of Our Own, page 15:
3. To free from the stranglehold of excessive constraints.
   • No more strangleholds! No more strangleholds! Ungag our souls!! Unstrangle our souls!! Unsmother our souls!! 1980, Antler, Factor, page 61:
   • We don't even have a right to vote on this irrigation systems, but we come here to ask the Federal Government to unstrangle us with the state and the state law that's been passed down onto us. 2012, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Indian Affairs, The Wind River Irrigation Project, page 19:
   • This has been one way in which the surrealists have tried to unstrangle the iron grip of convention. 1993, Vēguṇṭa Mōhanaprasād, Punarapi, page 142:
   • Those who are afraid to unstrangle the judge, and allow him to comment on the facts, contribute more than all others to the inefficiency of the jury today. 1946, Maynard E. Pirsig, Cases and Materials on Judicial Administration, page 389:
4. To free up (something) that has become choked up; unblock.
   • Bangkok trying to unstrangle its traffic 1987, United Nations. Dept. of International Economic and Social Affairs, Population growth and policies in mega-cities: Bangkok:
   • He promised to unstrangle Houston's "miserable transportation system," to "get started rebuilding the inner city" and to "change attitudes" in the police department. 1977, The New York Times Biographical Service - Volume 8, page 1535:
   • Speak the truth again: from the madhouse of your mother came a Jenny full of hot life and a lot of love, who learned to unstrangle and is still unstrangling all the chokeholds that were put on you. 1983, Jenny James, David Boadella, Room to Breathe, page 271:
5. To relax from constricting tension.
   • Mrs. Kane said, trying to unstrangle her voice. “Or better still—” she wet her lips and tried again, “or better still, why not ask Marlene? I bet Marlene would love to go with you.” 1972, Summer situations, page 31:
   • Even Robert Parish was seen to unstrangle a smile. 1981, Imprint - Volume 21, page 74:
   • He drew a hand across his neck, as if to unstrangle his voice. 1923, Munsey's Magazine - Volume 80, page 137:

Forms