How to Use unpick in a Sentence

unpick

verb
  • Charlton’s goal came from a set piece — Chelsea have had a habit of being unpicked from set plays this season.
    — Cerys Jones, New York Times, 12 Jan. 2026
  • Then trace the seam that runs around the baseball in your mind’s eye; imagine unpicking the seam and taking off the cover.
    — Nick Chater, WSJ, 10 Aug. 2018
  • Naturally, many hours are spent unpicking what is working and what’s not.
    — Heikki Väänänen, Forbes, 7 Mar. 2023
  • The next step is to unpick exactly why these river flows are altering so rapidly and work out how to respond.
    — Laura Paddison, CNN, 12 Dec. 2024
  • The camera presents their evidence as fact, forcing the audience to unpick the truth from the lies and deceit.
    — CNN, 5 Nov. 2021
  • The Belgium winger unpicked West Brom for the opener in the 25th minute.
    — USA TODAY, 12 Feb. 2018
  • Avery had shown the world how to unpick the richest treasure box on earth and revealed the wealth waiting to be stolen from heathens’ pockets.
    — Sean Kingsley, Smithsonian Magazine, 2 Apr. 2024
  • London has become so closely tied to this continental union that unpicking these will be a complex process.
    — Alexander Smith, NBC News, 28 Oct. 2019
  • Detective Nicola Bridge must unpick a web of lies and rivalries to unmask the killer.
    — Max Goldbart, Deadline, 12 Mar. 2025
  • As a result, wineries are closing, wine producers are leaving grapes unpicked or pulling crops out of the land, and tanks of bulk wine are sitting in reserves.
    — Erica Pandey, Axios, 2 Nov. 2024
  • His characteristics are based on short, neat passes, providing guile to unpick deep-sitting blocks and work in tight areas.
    — Jacob Tanswell, The Athletic, 7 Feb. 2025
  • But Brentford managed to unpick this tighter line with some subtle, intelligent movement.
    — Conor O'Neill, New York Times, 29 Sep. 2025
  • What’s the easiest way to carry on the conversation without having to unpick every aspect of my dating life for the past six years?
    — Mallory Ortberg, Slate Magazine, 3 Apr. 2017
  • The 11-year-old also had obsessive compulsive disorder and would tear apart her shirts, unpicking all the seams.
    — Catie Monteiro, NBC News, 14 Sep. 2017
  • That’s partly because the effects of chemical and material tweaks can often be too complex to unpick.
    — The Physics Arxiv Blog, Discover Magazine, 17 May 2022
  • The risk is that this simply rolls the dark side of tracking cookies forward into a new era, and in a way that is impossible for users to unpick to understand their risks.
    — Zak Doffman, Forbes, 21 Dec. 2024
  • Her example reminds me of Alexander the Great, slicing through the knot with a sword instead of messing about trying to unpick it.
    — Steff Yotka, Vogue, 5 Dec. 2018
  • If farmers are left with their yields unpicked, that directly translates to dollars lost for them, their families, their communities, states and country.
    — Dan Gooding, MSNBC Newsweek, 18 Sep. 2025
  • To unpick a nuclear device, engineers need to know the exact sequence in which the pieces were originally put together.
    — Benjamin Plackett, Discover Magazine, 8 Feb. 2019
  • When fit and confident, Pedri is Spain’s best playmaker and the most likely to unpick a packed opposition defence.
    — The Athletic Uk Staff, The Athletic, 24 Apr. 2024
  • Valverde set his side up dangerously, opting for Álex Berengeur as a false nine, and looking to unpick an unsettled Betis defence.
    — Sam Leveridge, Forbes.com, 31 Aug. 2025
  • Legions of academics, not to mention government officials and researchers in think-tanks, are devoted to unpicking these problems.
    — The Economist, 28 Nov. 2019
  • Focus groups for these voters, which often took about 90 minutes, gave researchers enough time to unpick intentions that quantitative polling methods would miss.
    — Thomas G. Moukawsher, Newsweek, 6 Nov. 2024
  • Tactical discipline was key to the second period, as both managers aimed to tighten up at the back and use their nouse and creative players to unpick the opposing defensive locks.
    — SI.com, 30 Oct. 2019
  • So the next suitor that comes along not only has to unpick the ball of wool that is their finances, but also has to contend with two sizeable loans to previous prospective owners — loans that will need to be paid back at some point.
    — Nick Miller, The Athletic, 26 Aug. 2024
  • But to his supporters, whether Tisza can unpick the Orbánist model and govern effectively felt like a question for another night.
    — Christian Edwards, CNN Money, 12 Apr. 2026
  • But until paleoanthropology can unpick the threads of facial evolution with greater precision, the chin will continue to elude us.
    — Scott Travers, Forbes.com, 24 Jan. 2026
  • Quickly, the book opens up, and up, and up, unpicking the long trail of trauma, not just for Birdie, but for a satisfying constellation of characters, all of whom glitter with life.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 6 Jan. 2026
  • Since the 1940s, scientists have been unpicking the mysteries of this vertical migration and the creatures taking part in it.
    — WIRED, 9 Dec. 2023
  • Investigators are also starting to unpick more details about the scale and scope of LockBit’s operations.
    — Matt Burgess, WIRED, 7 May 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'unpick.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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