Unpack Meaning
/ʌnˈpæk/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
verbTo remove from a package or container, particularly with respect to items that had previously been arranged closely and securely in a pack.
verbTo empty containers that had been packed.
Sentence Examples
I have to unpack my luggage.
You have to unpack your luggage for customs inspection.
CEFR Practice Quiz
After arriving home, she needed to ____ her suitcase to find her clothes.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
It took us several hours to ____ all the boxes after we moved into our new and beautiful apartment today.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English unpakken, equivalent to un- + pack. Compare Saterland Frisian uutpakje (“to unpack”), West Frisian útpakke (“to unpack”), Dutch uitpakken (“to unpack”), German auspacken (“to unpack”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"There may be another argument here, if we had time to unpack it, about modernism and the rise of the middle classes."
— 2013 September 20, Anne Enright, “A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride – review”, in The Guardian:
"Yet few Americans — including the president — understand how global trade works, both how it can help our economy and how some can be left behind. Let’s try to unpack a few of the complexities."
— 2019 October 17, Steven Rattner, “Unpacking the Trade Deficit”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
"From a gender reveal to a secret ceremony and rifts with other royal family members, there was a lot to unpack from the interview"
— 2021 March 8, Helen Sullivan, “Meghan and Harry: 12 things we learned from the Oprah special”, in The Guardian:
"The rounded vowels [y] and [œ/ə] in Russian seem to unpack as glide-vowel sequences in words borrowed from French and German, […]"
— 2000, Language, volume 76, numbers 1-2, page 337:
"Whereas the high vowels /ʏ, y/ unpack, the mid vowels /œ, ø/ are adapted as single segments in these languages (see examples in (36) for Vietnamese (Barker 1969) and (37) for Fon (Gbeto 2000)). […]
French /y/ → Vietnamese /wi/
accu [a'ky] → ac-quy [ak kwi]"
— 2008, Katrin Dohlus, The Role of Phonology and Phonetics in Loanword Adaptation, page 73:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
After arriving home, she needed to ____ her suitcase to find her clothes.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
It took us several hours to ____ all the boxes after we moved into our new and beautiful apartment today.