1Open and remove the contents of (a suitcase, bag, or package)

1. 1.1 Remove (something) from a suitcase, bag, or package.
   we unpacked the sandwiches

   Example sentencesExamples

   • When you've unpacked your presents, don't leave the empty boxes for valuable goods outside your dustbins where they can be seen.
   • After I unpacked everything from my suitcase for couple of hours, I became awfully tired and quickly fell into a deep slumber on my soft comfy bed.
   • Now, four months later, as he unpacks his family's belongings, he still mourns his flat in Bir Nabala.
   • I had just unpacked some essentials out of my suitcase when Jordan knocked on the bedroom door.
   • Anna was unpacking her clothing, her suitcase resting on the bed nearest the window.
   • Assuming that nothing in the package description, unpacking instructions and so forth, needs to be updated, that's all you have to do.
   • Her aunt unpacked a picnic of deviled eggs, ham sandwiches, lemonade.
   • Her parents nodded and pushed Liv to sit down on the bed with Sid and promptly began unpacking everything from the suitcases.
   • Complete package: unpack it, plug it in and let it burn.
   • Two shelf stockers were unpacking bags of cat food and meowing repeatedly at each other.
   • So, anyway, the items in my shopping bag were unpacked, re-scanned carefully, and the total amounted to exactly the same as before.
   • She began to unpack her clothes into the empty wardrobe.
   • Alanis unpacked everything from their bags and sighed heavily.
   • Kuepper's a troubadour, a wandering minstrel who unpacks his swag at the Great Northern this Sunday, May 8.
   • As the tribe unpacks its weaponry, Johnny's girl Janette makes sure the camp is tidy.
   • I unzipped one suitcase and began unpacking jeans, t-shirts, and skirts and placing them in the four-drawer dresser.
   • Out on the ice, however, as the crew unpacks the parachute, she begins to get anxious.
   • Jeffrey slowly unpacked a few things before locking up his suitcase and grabbing his schedule on the way out to the main hall.
   • While unpacking my groceries, I imagined that I'd become a famous writer and had approached her as she sat at the far end of the parking lot, reading my famous book.
   • After unpacking my sleeping bag, toothbrush and kettle, I was gasping for a cup of tea.

   Synonyms

   unload, unburden, disburden, clear, make vacant, vacate, evacuate, void
2. 1.2 Analyse (something) into its component elements.
   let us unpack this question

   Example sentencesExamples

   • This investigation unpacks the frames of reference and modes of identification that cultivate preferences and expectations in regard to age, gender, and romance in screen cultures by way of a paradigmatic case.
   • Levin unpacks the technicalities with a skill honed from giving many lectures on the subject, and it is fascinating to read.
   • It unpacks the assertions made by his books and movies.
   • A.O. Scott cannily unpacks the audience for Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge [‘But in New York!’
   • Under David's guidance, participants set to work building a scene out of this story, unpacking the fears and desires of the key characters and allowing for audience interventions.
   • Wilcox's essay usefully opens the collection by unpacking some of the diverse meanings of the key concept evoked in its title, ‘representation.’
   • As I sit here unpacking my mental suitcase from this trip, I do feel like I've been a tourist.
   • Sullivan sounds like a teenager in her 30s and doesn't mind explaining slang or unpacking her opinions so anyone can understand them.
   • Thus, the first thing we need to do here is unpack Lloyd's argument by supplying this missing analysis.
   • While on a drive to repossess a refrigerator from a customer who can't keep up with her payments, Obi unpacks the morality of crime in the new South Africa.
   • On the other hand, the analysis does not unpack the domestic British economy into its constituent parts or regions.
   • Max Blumental does a great job of unpacking the deep core of hypocrisy that reverberates through the Family Research Council.
   • Trade secrets tumble out when unpacking those thoughts.
   • Where this power is located and how it is used by who for whom seems to be the question Donovan Ward tries to unpack.
   • If we unpack this comic moment we find the elements of Eliot's The Waste Land used to different purpose.
   • Tomorrow a really good article is coming out that unpacks this aspect of the story quite nicely.
   • It is an issue to which almost all of us give some thought, yet it is by no means a question easy to unpack and explore.
   • What I propose to do in this essay is to unpack both the question and my own responses to it.
   • Brackett unpacks the idea of a stable racial essence by analysing Brown's music in terms of a black discursive world set in a particular historical context.
   • David Neiwert once again explains lucidly and at length; his most recent post unpacks recent developments plus includes links to his previous notes on the subject.
3. 1.3Computing Convert (data) from a compressed form to a usable form.
   you can unpack specified files and directories

   Example sentencesExamples

   • This prime number can be unpacked into the original source code for DeCSS, the software that decodes the DVD encryption scheme.
   • The package.def files describe how to get, verify the download, unpack, configure, build and install the package software.
   • To install, first unpack the Logwatch source files and cd into the resulting directory.
   • Right after the subroutine we use it to create a format string to unpack the output from fdisk.
   • I downloaded and unpacked the Enhydra tar file, which created a large number of files and directories under the enhydra4.0 directory.