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.
In South Bank, we see a group of teenagers tend three ponies tethered on the grass.
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026
With rare exception, the camera stays tethered to the vehicle.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
Due to his ageing fabric, he now usually appears tethered rather than taking to the skies.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
The original version of Atlas, reliant on heavy hydraulics and tethered to a cable, was unveiled by Boston Dynamics more than a decade ago as part of a U.S. military robotics competition for search-and-rescue operations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
Boats of varying colors and sizes float on the river, tethered to wooden docks.
From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
