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 Word Forms

• untethered adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of tethered¹

tether ( def. ) + -ed ² ( def. )

Example Sentences

Boats of varying colors and sizes float on the river, tethered to wooden docks.

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It floated serenely at treetop height and was tethered with ropes to a circle of stakes that had been hammered firmly into the earth.

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Alas, one of its legs was tethered by a long, thin cord to the epaulet of the actor pirate upon whose shoulder it had so recently perched.

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Taking steroids, he added, had been a "stupid decision of my own", adding that he was "tired of being tethered to this solution".

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If Hungary’s strongman prime minister, Viktor Orbán, remains firmly tethered to the Trumpist right and the cosplay intellectuals of the “national conservative” movement, he also looks to be sui generis in several ways.

Read more on Salon

Related Words

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