I’ve often used the word ‘unravel’ but until the other day I don’t think I’ve ever used the word ‘ravel’; it does exist although it is obsolete, and means:
transitive verb:
-
to entangle, confuse
intransitive verb
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obsolete : to become entangled or confused
It can also mean to confuse someone or perplex them and it can also be when a road surface breaks up – we have plenty of ravelled roads round here, I can tell you!
One thing I leaned is that in fact ravel and unravel can mean the same thing:
Ravel is an interesting verb, in that it can mean both “tangle” and “untangle.” So if you work to ravel yarn into a neat ball, your cat may come along and try to ravel it again.
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/ravel
I guessed it may come from the French, but no, I was wrong, it comes from the Dutch, and in the original usage the verb was used to mean to ravel and to unravel; there is a reason for this – the origin was from weaving, where something which ravelled (became unwoven, or as we might say today, unravelled) then became ravelled (tangled up)… Perhaps it’s a Dutch joke… I must ask my dear Dutch friend!
Lois Elsden 
Interesting that Ravel is used in this poem “presence of Eternity. by Eunice Tjiens:
But I shall go down from this airy space, this swift white peace, this stinging exultation;
And time will close about me, and my soul stir to the rhythm of the daily round.
Yet, having known, life will not press so close, and always I shall feel time ravel thin about me;
For once I stood In the white windy presence of eternity.
From: O sacred mountain – Eunice Tjiens.
I guess she means ravel in the sense of ‘wind’ not ‘unwind’. This is the only use of the word I have come across. She was American, from Chicago!
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Oh yes! of course!
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