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.
Whatever their subject, the photographer remained tethered to his city.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2026
Meir rode the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to the worksites, while Adenot remained tethered to the station.
From BBC ● Sep. 1, 2026
Due to his ageing fabric, he now usually appears tethered rather than taking to the skies.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
"People are moving away from the traditional mindset that certain jobs must be tethered to a specific gender," Chen Ning, the 27-year-old founder, told AFP.
From Barron's ● Jul. 8, 2026
The Varangian flicked his sword at Kin, and the horseshoe spun back around, like they were tethered to rope that Sigurd had caught on his sword.
From Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack
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.
