v. [UN-2 4.] trans. To free from swathings; to unswaddle.
a. 1400. Octovian, 302. Her chylderen sche douȝte þer to baþe: Sche sat adoun hem to vnswade.
1598. Florio, Sfasciare, to vnswathe, to vnbind.
1604. Drayton, Moses Map Miracle, 13. This most sweete princesse … Soone on her knee vnswathes it as her owne.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 90, ¶ 7. About Nine a Clock … an old Woman came to unswathe me.
1788. Mrs. Hughes, Henry & Isabella, I. 115. Sir George … insisted upon the nurse’s immediately unpinning and unswathing him.
a. 1822. Shelley, Fragm. Unf. Drama, 207. Spring indeed Came to unswathe her infants.
1837. P. Keith, Bot. Lex., s.v. Bulb, An Egyptian mummy that was lately unswathed in this country.
1896. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., I. 419. At the end of every three hours the child is unswathed.
fig. 1593. Nashe, Christ’s T., I j b. I will vnswathe thy breast with my sharpe knyfe.
1827. Coleridge, Lit. Rem. (1839), IV. 319. Spinoza himself describes his own philosophy as in substance the same with that of … the Cabalists—only unswathed from the Biblical dress.
1833. Tennyson, in Ld. Tennyson, Mem. (1897), I. 115. The clouds unswathe them from the height.
1873. H. Rogers, Orig. Bible, i. 42. How came any of them to unswathe themselves from all these lifelong notions.
