| Ravel 1. (v. t.) To separate or undo the texture of; to take apart; to untwist; to unweave or unknit; -- often followed by out; as, to ravel a twist; to ravel out a stocking. 2. (v. t.) To undo the intricacies of; to disentangle. 3. (v. t.) To pull apart, as the threads of a texture, and let them fall into a tangled mass; hence, to entangle; to make intricate; to involve. 4. (v. i.) To become untwisted or unwoven; to be disentangled; to be relieved of intricacy. 5. (v. i.) To fall into perplexity and confusion. 6. (v. i.) To make investigation or search, as by picking out the threads of a woven pattern. Thesaurus Entries Chinese puzzle, Gordian knot, Rube Goldberg contraption, answer, ball up, bottom, can of worms, clarify, clear up, complex, complicate, confound, confuse, crack, debug, decipher, decode, disembroil, disentangle, disintricate, disinvolve, divine, do, dope, dope out, embrangle, entangle, explain, fathom, figure out, find out, find the answer, find the solution, foul up, get, get right, guess, guess right, have it, hit it, implicate, interpret, involve, jungle, knot, labyrinth, louse up, make out, maze, meander, mesh, mess, mess up, mix up, muck, muck up, muddle, open the lock, perplex, plumb, psych, psych out, puzzle out, ramify, ravel out, resolve, riddle, screw up, snafu, snake pit, snarl, snarl up, solve, sort out, tangle, tangled skein, unbraid, unclutter, uncoil, undo, unknot, unlock, unmix, unravel, unriddle, unscramble, unsnarl, untangle, unthread, untwine, untwist, unweave, unwind, webwork, wheels within wheels, wilderness, work, work out |