unleash

Verb

unleash (third-person singular simple present unleashes, present participle unleashing, simple past and past participle unleashed)

1. (transitive) To free from a leash, or as from a leash.
   • He unleashed his dog in the park.
   • Somewhat unsurprisingly, unleashing the most powerful navy on the planet with carte blanche to exterminate slavers on sight saw a dramatic and sudden collapse in slaver numbers in the late 1840s and early 1850s.2018 December 1, Drachinifel, 10:12 from the start, in Anti-Slavery Patrols - The West Africa Squadron, archived from the original on 29 Nov 2024

   Antonyms:

   leash, leash up

2. (figuratively) To let go; to release.
   • He unleashed his fury.
   • It is the goneness of the Holocaust that produces the simultaneous profusion of discourses and understandings; the goneness is what opens up, what spurs, what unleashes the perpetual desire to do, to make, to rethink the Holocaust.1999, Vivian Patraka, Spectacular Suffering: Theatre, Fascism, and the Holocaust
3. (figuratively) To precipitate; to bring about.
   • Even if it were working perfectly, the stimulus would not come close to stemming the cascade of joblessness unleashed by this megarecession.2009 July 11, Bob Herbert, “The Human Equation”, in The New York Times
   • People who talk about an imminent possibility of war seldom pose this question: What would North Korea’s leadership get from unleashing a war that they are likely to lose in weeks, if not days?2013 April 9, Andrei Lankov, “Stay Cool. Call North Korea’s Bluff.”, in The New York Times