ungrapple

English

Etymology

un- +‎ grapple

Verb

ungrapple (third-person singular simple present ungrapples, present participle ungrappling, simple past and past participle ungrappled)

1. To release from a grappling hook.
   • 1897, Sir William Laird Clowes, Sir Clements Robert Markham, Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Royal Navy: A History from the Earliest Times to the Present:

     But, the waves of the sea growing high, we were forced to ungrapple, and to leave our men fighting on board her from eight of the clock in the evening till eight in the morning.

   • 2011, A.C. Crispin, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom:

     We need to ungrapple La Vipère. I cannot risk having the fire spread.

   • 2016, John Lambshead, Poseidon’s Warriors: Classical Naval Warfare 480–31 BC, page 16:

     If both players want to ungrapple, it is automatic and no roll is required. If ungrappling succeeds then the ships are moved slightly apart and combat ceases.

2. (more generally) To disengage; to release from being held.
   • 1894, William Warren Vernon, Readings on the Inferno of Dante, page 211:

     But then the fear of further obloquy and ridicule makes them desist from the open enmity they still feel in their secret hearts, and like the two Demons, as we read in the lines that follow, they find the place so hot for them, that they ungrapple from their deadly contention.

   • 2005, François Rabelais, Peter Anthony Motteux, Gargantua and Pantagruel, page 95:

     The Monk uttering these words in choler, as he past under a walnet-tree, in his way towards the Causey, he broached the vizor of his helmet on the stump of a great branch of the said tree: neverthelesse, he set his spurres so fiercely to the horse, who was full of mettal, and quick on the spurre, that he bounded forwards, and the Monk going about to ungrapple his vizor, let go his hold of the bridle, and so hanged by his hand upon the bough, whilest his horse stole away from under him.

   • 2008, Water and Energy International - Volume 65, page 136:

     The lifting beam assembly is automatic and is manually set by the operator to automatically grapple or ungrapple with the stoplog assembly