unspool

verb

un·​spool ˌən-ˈspül 

unspooled; unspooling; unspools

transitive verb

1

: to unwind from a spool

unspool the cable

2

: to execute or present artfully or gracefully

unspooled a jump shot

unspooling an intricate tale

intransitive verb

: to be presented or revealed on or as if on a movie screen

Examples of unspool in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

For Findikoglu, whose designs interrogate traditional modes of femininity and unspools them into powerfully sensually looks, hair acts as armor and invitation into her gothic underworld. —Anna Cafolla, Vogue, 25 Oct. 2025

Films which unspool in closed spaces, whose spectacle is their intimacy. —John Hopewell, Variety, 24 Oct. 2025

This candid approach vividly unspools the conflict at its center, concerning a dispute between neighbors in 2023 that ended in murder. —Randall Colburn, Entertainment Weekly, 21 Oct. 2025

Across forty pages of perfect derangement, Wagner uses her personal-finance handbook to unspool her divorce odyssey, seizing the ethos that no personal tragedy is too intimate to exploit. —Katy Waldman, New Yorker, 20 Oct. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1940, in the meaning defined at transitive sense 1

Rhymes for unspool

• ampoule
• bascule
• carpool
• cesspool
• ferrule
• footstool
• guayule
• lobule
• misrule
• preschool
• pustule
• whirlpool