unwind

verb

1. (transitive)To separate (something that is wound up)

   “to unwind a ball of yarn”

   “Could you unwind about a foot of ribbon so I can finish the package?”

2. (obsolete, transitive)To disentangle

   “[…]but being not so skilful as in every point to unwind themselves where the snares of glossing speech do lie to entangle them,[…]”

3. (colloquial, intransitive)To relax; to chill out; to rest and become relieved of stress

   “After work, I like to unwind by smoking a pipe while reading the paper.”

4. (intransitive)To be or become unwound; to be capable of being unwound or untwisted.
5. (transitive)To close out a position, especially a complicated position.
6. (transitive)To undo something.
7. (transitive)To navigate back through (a call stack) so as to generate a stack trace etc.

   “If the expression is a throw, we unwind the stack seeking a handler expression.”

8. (transitive)Synonym of unroll (“replace a loop with a sequence”).
9. (figuratively, transitive)To unravel or explain.

noun

1. Any mechanism or operation that unwinds something.

   “The NEWPC argument specifies the address to which control should be returned after the unwind is complete. If it is omitted, its default is for control to return to the PC saved in the call frame next outermost to the unwound ones.”

   “A primary function of the unwind is to provide a guided web into the slitter rewinder for accuracy in locating the web for slitting or to realign the edge of the web in a straight rewinding operation.”