Unroll

v. [UN-² 3, 5, 7. Cf. Du. ont-, G. entrollen.]

  1.  trans. To open out from a rolled-up state; to uncoil.

1412–20.  Lydg., Chron. Troy, III. 171. Ful knyȝtly þei han take her weye … with baneris … displaied, And her penouns vnrollid euerychon.

1523.  Ld. Berners, Froiss., I. ccxli. 145/1. [He] rested on the felde, and caused his banerr to be vnrolled.

1611.  Cotgr., Desrouler, to vnroule, vnfould, lay open.

a. 1700.  Evelyn, Diary, 15 Jan. 1645. On which lay the 5 Bookes of Moses, and the Commandments a little unrowled.

1769.  Mrs. Raffald, Eng. Housekpr. (1778), 89. Then unroll the cloth, and roll it tight again.

1786.  Abercrombie, Gard. Assist., 267. Turf … when to be laid, unrolled, joining … close edge to edge.

1828.  Duppa, Trav. Italy, etc., 98. In this Museum [at Naples] is carried on the operation of unrolling the ancient papyri.

1873.  J. Richards, Wood-working Factories, 122. By unrolling the blade on the floor, it can be tested as to straightness.

  refl.  1815.  Scott, Guy M., xxxviii. Rolling up … the long lash of his horsewhip, and then by a jerk causing it to unroll itself into the middle of the floor.

1855.  Kingsley, Westw. Ho! xvii. Till not … an armadillo [dare] unroll himself.

  b.  In fig. contexts.

1678.  Dryden, All for Love, V. i. Time has unrowl’d her Glories to the last, And now clos’d up the Volume.

1750.  Gray, Elegy, 50. But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page … did ne’er unroll. Ibid. (1757), Bard, 106. But oh! what solemn scenes on Snowdon’s height Descending slow their glitt’ring skirts unroll?

1818.  Byron, Ch. Har., IV. clvii. Until thy mind … unroll in mighty graduations, part by part, The glory.

1866.  Le Fanu, All in Dark, xiii. One could see … that she was reading to herself the romance that was unrolled within her pretty girlish head.

1876–89.  R. Bridges, Growth of Love, xlvii. The busy mind will in one woeful moment more upwind Than lifelong years unroll of bitter or black.

  c.  To extend, spread out; to disperse.

1813.  Scott, Trierm., III. xii. And still … Were … bastions dimly seen, And Gothic battlements between Their gloomy length unroll’d.

1817.  Shelley, Rev. Islam, I. xxxviii. Wisdom had unrolled The clouds which hide the gulf of mortal woe.

1831.  Scott, Cast. Dang., iii. The mist had settled upon the hills, and unrolled itself upon brook, glade, and tarn.

  d.  fig. To develop or expand fully.

1854.  Emerson, Lett. & Soc. Aims, Eloquence. Jenny Lind … complained of concert-rooms and town-halls, that they did not give her room enough to unroll her voice.

a. 1871.  Grote, Eth. Fragm., iv. (1876), 92. That all these elements are really present, is shewn most incontestably when the sentiment comes to be deliberately unrolled.

  2.  intr. To become unrolled. Also fig.

1588.  Shaks., Tit. A., II. iii. 35. Euen as an Adder when she doth vnrowle To do some fatall execution.

1797[?].  Blake, Four Zoas, IX. 20. The Books of Urizen unroll with dreadful noise!

1807.  J. Barlow, Columb., II. 132. The venturous soul Bids greater powers and bolder thoughts unrol.

1816.  J. Wilson, Misc. Poems, 194. As the clouds of the morning unroll.

1827.  Faraday, Chem. Manip., xx. 532. To fold … this projecting part down, in such a manner as to … prevent the slip from unrolling.

  † 3.  trans. To remove from a roll or list. Obs.^–1

1611.  Shaks., Wint. T., IV. iii. 130. If I make not this Cheat bring out another,… let me be vnrold, and my name put in the booke of Vertue.

  Hence Unrolled ppl. a.¹; Unroller; Unrolling vbl. sb. and ppl. a.¹

1805.  Luccock, Nat. Wool, 113. When we find a line of sand strewed along the *unrolled fleece.

1890.  Retrospect Med., CII. 27. Passing the unrolled end [of the bandage] over the shoulder and down the back.

1843.  For. Q. Rev., II. 364. A pale-faced *unroller of dusty records.

1648.  Hexham, II. Een Ontrollinge, an *Vnroling, or an Vnfolding.

1856.  Stanley, Sinai & Pal., i. 3. There is … no unrolling of a great drama, no beginning, middle and end of a moral progress.

1870.  Burton, Hist. Scot., lxi. VI. 93. The unrolling of secrets.

1699.  C. Hopkins, Crt. Prosp., Peace, iii. *Unrowling Waves steal softly to the Shore.

a. 1850.  Bryant, To a Cloud, 9. I would I were with thee … To rest on thy unrolling skirts.