✂️ To remove stitches 🧩 To break unity

to unsew

9.9

Cause a group or plan to fall apart

verb
/ʌnˈsoʊ/

Literature

: desunir

Rumors and mistrust began to unsew the close-knit community.

Examples

A single mistake could unsew years of careful planning and cooperation.
The constant disagreements threatened to unsew the team's fragile unity before the project ended.
The team plans to unsew the project to improve it.
After the argument, it felt like they had to unsew their friendship.
The constant disagreements threatened to unsew the team's fragile unity before the project ended.
Rumors and mistrust began to unsew the close-knit community.
A single mistake could unsew years of careful planning and cooperation.

Synonyms

to disunite

vsto unsew

1 7.0

To cause people or groups to separate

weakens overall structure or coherence in a broad figurative sense

to decohere

vsto unsew

Specialized

1 9.6

To stop acting as one unit, often in a scientific system

refers to actively weakening or destroying structure rather than passive loss

to unsense

vsto unsew

9.9

To make something lose its meaning

attacks the unity or coherence of something rather than only removing meaning

Antonyms

to strengthen

327 3.0

To make muscles, relationships, or groups stronger

to unify

65 3.7

To bring people or things together into one group

How Disruptive

to shatter

48 4.6

to unsew

Literature

9.9

to disrupt

269 4.4

to unravel

75 4.4

to undermine

270 6.8

to weaken

305 2.8

to loosen

88 1.0

Surface Forms

unsew infinitive

unsewing present participle

unsews third person singular

unsewed past

unsewed past participle

Morphology

unsew = sew (semi-transparent) = un + sew

The sense is a figurative extension of the literal 'undo stitching' meaning; the metaphor to 'undermine cohesion' is understandable but not strictly literal.

Etymology

Unsew can also be used in a non-literal way and still breaks into un- 'reverse' plus sew 'to stitch'; think of pulling out the stitches that hold a coat together so it falls apart, and you can see why to unsew a team or plan is to weaken or destroy its unity.