Emily Dickinson Lexicon

RAV'EL, v.i. [rav'l.]

1. To fall into perplexity and confusion. Till by their own perplexities involv'd, / They ravel more, still less resolv'd. – Milton.
2. To work in perplexities; to busy one's self with intricacies; to enter by winding and turning. It will be needless to ravel far into the records of elder times. – Decay of Piety. The humor of raveling into all these mystical or entangled matters … produced infinite disputes. – Temple.
3. To be unwoven. [As far as my observation extends, ravel in the United States, is used only in the second sense above, viz. to unweave, to separate the texture of that which is woven or knit; so that ravel and unravel are with us always synonymous. Etymology proves this to be the true sense of the word ravel.]