unravel

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• intransitive verb To undo or ravel the entangled, knitted, or woven threads of.
• intransitive verb To undo or separate (entangled, knitted, or woven threads).
• intransitive verb To clarify the elements of (something mysterious or baffling); solve.
• intransitive verb To cause to fail or become ruined or unfulfilled.
• intransitive verb To become unraveled.
• intransitive verb To fail or become ruined or unfulfilled.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To disentangle or separate, as threads; especially, to take out the threads of (textile material). See ravel.
• To clear from complication or difficulty; unriddle; unfold.
• To separate the connected or united parts of; throw into disorder.
• To unfold or bring to a denouement, as the plot or intrigue of a play.
• To be unfolded; be disentangled.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• intransitive verb To become unraveled, in any sense.
• transitive verb To disentangle; to disengage or separate the threads of.
• transitive verb Hence, to clear from complication or difficulty; to unfold; to solve.
• transitive verb To separate the connected or united parts of; to throw into disorder; to confuse.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• verb to separate the threads (of)
• verb intransitive to become undone

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• verb become or cause to become undone by separating the fibers or threads of
• verb become undone
• verb disentangle