Word.ws English Dictionary

unring

unring verb: hypothetically, to reverse the act of ringing, or the consequences of the action.

Verb (1)

unring (third-person singular simple present unrings, present participle unringing, simple past unrang, past participle unrung)

  1. (transitive) Hypothetically, to reverse the act of ringing, or the consequences of the action.
    • In a criminal trial, if the prosecution brings in inadmissible evidence that would unfairly prejudice the accused, a mistrial may be warranted. Having the judge admonish the jury to disregard the evidence might not be enough, as the saying goes, 'You can't unring the bell.'

Verb (2)

unring (third-person singular simple present unrings, present participle unringing, simple past and past participle unringed)

  1. (poetic, transitive) To remove a ring from.
    • Her lofty song commands in thrilling strains
      That new-raised woman snap her rusty chains,
      Unring her finger and unbind her breast.1979, John Jefferson Bray, “The Story of Iphis”, in Poems 1972-1979

Forms of unring

third-person singular presentunrings
present participleunringing
pastunrang
past participleunrung
past participleunringed
pastunringed

Origin of unring

From un- + ring.

Words formed from unring

Questions about unring

What does unring mean?
Unring means hypothetically, to reverse the act of ringing, or the consequences of the action.
What part of speech is unring?
Unring is a verb.
What is the past tense of unring?
The past tense of unring is unrang.

Words near unring in the dictionary

  1. unriled
  2. unrimed
  3. unrimmed
  4. unrimpled
  5. Unrine
  6. unring
  7. unring a bell
  8. unringable
  9. unringed
  10. unringing
  11. unringing a bell

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unring (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “unring.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unring. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.