to unstraighten
- verb
- /ʌnˈstreɪtən/
- As she walked through the garden, she unstraightened the paths that had been carefully laid out.
Examples
-
He unstraightened the wire until it formed a perfect loop once again.
-
My parents' bed was still rumpled, the room unstraightened, clothes on the floor.
Fiction book (1996) -
My dad's house had a ghost... it would turn off and on lights on occasion, open the basement door if it was closed, and mess with pictures by turning them just enough to drive a person crazy enough to fix them, then they would unstraighten them.
Blog text (20) -
After checking the room, he noticed he had inadvertently unstraightened the papers on the desk.
Synonyms
To make something curved instead of straight
To change the shape of something so it is no longer normal
To change a thing's normal shape so it becomes bent or twisted
To bend out of shape when heated or wet
To twist a body or object into a strange shape
To bend something again after you first bend or straighten it
To bend something a little so it can move slightly
Antonyms
How Bent
Surface Forms
Morphology
unstraighten = straighten (transparent) = un + straight + en
Meaning is a straightforward negation of 'straighten' (to make not straight) and is predictable from 'straight' + '-en' with the prefix 'un-'.
Etymology
Unstraighten is made from the prefix un- meaning 'reverse' or 'not', the word straight, and the ending -en that makes verbs. Like undo or untie, to unstraighten is to reverse the act of making something straight, so you make it not straight again.