unbuild

If you dally as the clock approaches 2 p.m. on Sunday, you will see that Jerson Osorio’s team can unbuild a city as fast as they can build one.

From Slate ● Dec. 22, 2024

Over the next several weeks, her relatives unbuild Ypi’s entire sense of reality: Her country was a prison, her education was indoctrination, the old versions of freedom and democracy were lies.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 21, 2022

And though stigmergy might explain how termites build, it does not readily explain why they so often unbuild, dismantling and modifying their work as they go.

From The New Yorker ● Sep. 10, 2018

There is something striking about hearing Deulofeu talking about the future and stability, although the risk when you build a talented team is that others come and unbuild it.

From The Guardian ● Oct. 16, 2015

You may think you know a house by living in it, but you do not; you need to unbuild it to get more than a passing acquaintance.

From Old Plymouth Trails by Winthrop Packard

And that would mean unbuilding the Great Wall.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 20, 2022

Indeed, the termite mound is not so much a building as a body, a self-regulating organic process that continuously reacts to its changing environment, building and unbuilding itself.

From The New Yorker ● Sep. 10, 2018

And the dreams that have gotten away have tended to be unfulfilled exercises in unbuilding and regreening.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 7, 2018

To minimize the potential for contamination, workers have had to reverse engineer HA-23S, essentially unbuilding it from the inside using the glove ports.

From BusinessWeek ● Aug. 1, 2013

Heavy-eyed oxen of the Campagna are dragging stone and marble through the streets to build the Farnese palace and splendid houses for the cardinals; the whole town is a tumult of building and unbuilding.

From Bartholomew Sastrow Being the Memoirs of a German Burgomaster by Bartholomew Sastrow

In 2025, London had 281,000 unbuilt homes—houses that were conditionally accepted but never built, often because the developer decided the conditions were too arduous.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026

The proposed moratorium would not have stopped the giant World Logistics Center, which was approved by the City Council in 2015 and remains largely unbuilt.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 5, 2026

To achieve that increase, Habeck announced a series of measures that would cut red tape, including accelerating the planning and approval process for PV on buildings and on unbuilt land.

From Seattle Times ● May 5, 2023

Belfast's Casement Park and Everton's Bramley-Moore Dock, two unbuilt stadiums, are in the UK and Republic of Ireland's joint bid to host Euro 2028.

From BBC ● Apr. 12, 2023

The unbuilt bird-house was the Banquo's ghost at the Rodney board, Mrs. Rodney hearkening back to it in and out of season.

From Judith of the Plains by Marie Manning