Verb
To undo a constriction of the air passages, or restore to life after death by strangulation.
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After you are seated and help your wife unstrangle herself out of her cloak and pick up her opera glass bag seven or eight times, and say, "O, my God, can't you hang on to anything?"
That might be all right for Shorty, who is short, but, if that long- feared "Pride of Saskatchewan," Brother Sid Neville, ever got tangled up in a knot like that it might require medical aid to unstrangle him.
And that's something I can't stand, never getting a second chance; it's like trying to unstrangle somebody or unslap somebody you've slapped, go stuffing kids back into their mothers.
get off a bus at the airways terminal, gather your luggage, chase your hat, unstrangle your scarf, and spend only half an hour (if you're lucky) trying to hail a taxi; — try to use, in succession, half a dozen of the city's three hundred or so busted public telephones.
To release from something that squeezes tightly around.
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Sores and blisters were one introduction to the world of work, and slashing at Clematis to unstrangle whippy shoots of beech, which slapped the face and stung the eyes in defiance, has left little affection for the creeper and a stoical appreciation of this irksome task.
To free from the stranglehold of excessive constraints.
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Those who are afraid to unstrangle the judge, and allow him to comment on the facts, contribute more than all others to the inefficiency of the jury today.
No more strangleholds! No more strangleholds! Ungag our souls!! Unstrangle our souls!! Unsmother our souls!!
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This has been one way in which the surrealists have tried to unstrangle the iron grip of convention.
We don't even have a right to vote on this irrigation systems, but we come here to ask the Federal Government to unstrangle us with the state and the state law that's been passed down onto us.
To free up (something) that has become choked up; unblock.
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He promised to unstrangle Houston's "miserable transportation system," to "get started rebuilding the inner city" and to "change attitudes" in the police department.
Speak the truth again: from the madhouse of your mother came a Jenny full of hot life and a lot of love, who learned to unstrangle and is still unstrangling all the chokeholds that were put on you.
Bangkok trying to unstrangle its traffic
To relax from constricting tension.
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He drew a hand across his neck, as if to unstrangle his voice.
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Mrs. Kane said, trying to unstrangle her voice. “Or better still—” she wet her lips and tried again, “or better still, why not ask Marlene? I bet Marlene would love to go with you.”
Even Robert Parish was seen to unstrangle a smile.