To disconnect two things that were joined together, so they can move apart. The classic picture is a railway: workers uncouple the last carriage and it stays behind while the train pulls away. It works for anything with a physical link made to be undone — a trailer from a car, a hose from a pump, one machine from another. The important part is that the joining was deliberate and temporary. You uncouple things that were coupled; you do not uncouple things that were glued or welded. There is a wider, more abstract use, common in serious writing about economics and policy: to break a link between two things that used to rise and fall together. 'Countries are trying to uncouple economic growth from carbon emissions.' Here nothing physical is separated at all — a relationship is being broken. And a third use, gentler and newer: about people. To uncouple is to end a romantic partnership, and the phrase 'conscious uncoupling' became famous around 2014 as a kinder-sounding word for separating. Some people find that use precious; it is still widely understood. The word is not common in daily speech. Ordinary English says 'unhook it', 'take it off', 'break the link'.

解開連結、脫鉤（把原本接在一起的兩部分分開，例如火車車廂、拖車）。經濟政策上就是台灣媒體說的「脫鉤」。講感情時是「分開、結束伴侶關係」。