Definition of "unfoldment"

Even the diverse elements, the minute side-studies and the profuse comments, are all woven into the organic structure, and are essential to the unfoldment of the plot.

1884, George Willis Cooke, George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy‎

Under the watchful care of Martha she flourished and was happy, her mother in little, a laughing whirlwind of tender flesh, tireless feet, dancing eyes, hair of sunlight that was darkening as she grew older, and a mind that seemed to him she called father a miracle of unfoldment.

1903, Harry Leon Wilson, The Lions of the Lord‎

Every man has to become a perfect man, to unfold to the fullest degree the divine possibilities which lie latent within him, for that unfoldment is the object of the entire scheme so far as he is concerned.

1912, C.W. Leadbeater, A Textbook of Theosophy‎

It is that the phenomenon proceeds from, and is a necessary accompaniment of, the growth of human Consciousness itself - its growth, namely, through the three great stages of its unfoldment.

1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 16

In Vedic cosmology, as well as in the cosmology of the Dogon of West Africa, the universe is an egg that shatters as it expands to begin its career of unfoldment in time.

1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, page 9