Unlash

v. [UN-² 4 b.]

  1.  trans. To detach or release by undoing a lashing.

1748.  Smollett, R. Random, xxvi. Our hammocks … were immediately unlashed.

1850.  R. G. Cumming, Hunter’s Life S. Afr. (1902), 102/2. Returning to the waggons, I commenced to unlash from the side of one of these a shovel.

1862.  Catal. Internat. Exhib., II. No. 2659. Improved systems of unlashing … ships’ boats.

1879.  Farrar, St. Paul, IX. xliii. II. 379. They began to unlash the boat and lower her into the sea.

  2.  To undo or untie (a lashing).

1853.  Sir H. Douglas, Milit. Bridges (ed. 3), 67. Nos. 1 and 3 unlash the [Pontoon] Lashings.

1870.  Milit. Engineering, 347. At the word Unlash, each man stoops down, and casts off the lashing in front of him.