tethered
Americanadjective
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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.
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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
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of tethered
Explanation
Tethered describes something that's tied up, like a horse that's tethered to a fence or a dog that's tethered to the person who is walking it. Whenever you confine a person or an animal to keep them in one place, they're tethered. A bank robber might leave his hostages tethered together in the vault, and you might keep your fence-jumping dog tethered to the porch when she's out in your yard. The root word is the Old Norse tjoðr, tether, which was used only as a noun to describe the rope that ties animals until the late 15th century, when the verb form developed.
Vocabulary lists containing tethered
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
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Life Is So Good
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Far from the Tree
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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.
Wilber felt terrified of the new and uncertain environment he was forced into, but the kindness and guidance of the other men in the facility kept him tethered, he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026
“From the start, Humphrey’s was tethered to a highly circumscribed and almost fictional view of the FTC’s role,” Chief Justice John Roberts writes for the majority.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 29, 2026
Nvidia has benefited from making itself a central part of the AI ecosystem, but that means that the company has tethered its own financial performance to that of its partners and customers.
From MarketWatch ● May 22, 2026
Alongside covering roads in huge nets to stop drone attacks, both Russia and Ukraine have fired thousands of tethered fibre-optic attack drones -- with the webs of discarded cables stretching for dozens of kilometres.
From Barron's ● May 20, 2026
Beck floated in the airlock, tethered to a wall-mounted spool.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
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.
