Explanation
Something is unchained when it's free from restraints that confine it. Better not leave your unchained bike outside of the library — someone might steal it! Most people think it's fine to leave your dog unchained in the back yard for a while but consider it cruel when a dog is chained outdoors all day. To be chained is to be secured by a chain, and when you add the prefix un-, "not," you get the opposite. An unchained tiger cub can happily run back to its mother, and an unchained gate can freely swing open.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He became one of Hollywood's most celebrated and popular film-makers in the 1990s and has won two Oscars, for writing Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained.
From BBC • Mar. 11, 2026
“The biggest surprise that would cause me to recalibrate would be autonomous AI agents displacing millions of jobs at the biggest companies,” said the author of the hugely popular Substack publication, Cassandra Unchained.
From MarketWatch • Jan. 12, 2026
Within weeks, Cassandra Unchained became one of the top-selling finance newsletters on Substack, with some 171,000 subscribers.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 28, 2025
However, the "Pulp Fiction" and "Django Unchained" filmmaker disagreed.
From Salon • Aug. 27, 2024
Well, the Devil moves still Unchained on earth; and while he toils, your toil Is of small matter.
From Mr. Faust by Ficke, Arthur Davison
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
