tethered

[ teth-erd ]

adjective

1. fastened or confined with or as if with a rope, chain, or the like to limit the range of movement:

   On this field trip, students will have the opportunity to take a ride in a tethered hot-air balloon.

   Too many lawmakers are partisan, inept, or too lightly tethered to reality.

2. Digital Technology. (of an electronic device) used to enable a wireless internet connection on another nearby device, often a laptop:

   You can browse the web more securely using a tethered phone, because your information is being sent directly through the phone rather than over a public wireless hotspot.

verb

1. the simple past tense and past participle of tether.

Other Words From

• un·teth·ered adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of tethered¹

tether ( def ) + -ed ²( def )

Example Sentences

Instead of using only humans, Macy’s has built five specialty vehicles with an innovative anchor tether framework that has been extensively field-tested and approved by NYC officials.

From Popular-Science

The senses are our tethers to the world—the real world, the one we’re in right now, not the one on our screens—and it calms my mind every time I check in with them.

From Outside Online

Then, in papers published last fall, researchers cut the tether to string theory altogether.

From Quanta Magazine

The finding suggests that such tethers could also help connect once-intact forests that have been fragmented by human activities and aid conservation efforts of these and other canopy dwellers.

From Science News

Controlled via a cloud-based dashboard, the Walmart delivery drones will hover 80 feet above customers’ yards and lower their orders down using a tether.

From Singularity Hub 

This was a tethered reconnaissance balloon, as first used 220 years ago in the French Revolutionary War.

From The Daily Beast

So here Clinton stands, tethered to a president who is neither loved nor feared.

From The Daily Beast

Ida is a mystery of sorts, tethered to a road journey in a bleak postwar Poland.

From The Daily Beast

Contrary to what critics insist, I saw no horses tethered in their stalls.

From The Daily Beast

No rope was required to retain a baby after the mother was tethered to a tree.

From The Daily Beast

He gave orders for the horses to be tethered a little distance in the rear of the camp, where they would be sheltered.

From Project Gutenberg

His horse was tethered below, behind another rock; and he felt positive that these men had not come upon it.

From Project Gutenberg

Barrington quieted his horse with soothing words, and dismounting, tethered him to a gate.

From Project Gutenberg

He was tethered in the centre of the arena, by one of his hind legs, to a stump about twelve inches high.

From Project Gutenberg

I call the Most High to witness—she submitted to all my demands meekly, as though she were no eaglet, but a tethered lamb!

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• barred
• blocked
• closed
• confined
• controlled
• defined
• deprived
• prescribed
• reduced
• restrained
• secured
• shortened