To open or unfasten a zipper on clothing or other items. In computing, to decompress or extract files from a compressed archive.
Formed by adding the prefix un- (meaning reversal) to zip, which originally referred to the sound of something moving quickly. The fastener meaning emerged in the 1920s with the popularization of the zipper, and the computer meaning developed in the 1980s with file compression technology.
The computing sense of 'unzip' is a perfect example of how physical metaphors shape our digital vocabulary - we 'unzip' files just as we unzip jackets, even though no actual zipper mechanism exists in the computer. This metaphorical bridging helps make abstract digital concepts more intuitive and accessible.
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