unattached
Americanadjective
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not attached.
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not connected or associated with any particular body, group, organization, or the like; independent.
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not engaged or married.
adjective
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not connected with any specific thing, body, group, etc; independent
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not engaged or married
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(of property) not seized or held as security or in satisfaction of a judgment
Etymology
Origin of unattached
Explanation
Unattached things are not connected or fastened. People can also be unattached, which usually means they don't have a long-term sweetheart. If you pull apart two pieces of Velcro, they're unattached. If your tent comes unattached, or disconnected, from its pole, it may collapse. If you're a freelance reporter, you work unattached to a particular paper or magazine. When we say a person is unattached we mean they are not in a committed relationship. In the animal world, unattached means "free to swim around."
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.
The author is a first-rate storyteller, and here he delivers something we don’t get much of these days: fun—a modern Horatio Alger story unattached to the politics of outrage.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
Japan's Daichi Kamada, 29, and Colombia's Jefferson Lerma, 31, have played regularly in midfield this season but both face becoming unattached midway through the World Cup, although the Eagles have a one-year option on Lerma.
From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2026
The real opportunity lies in attracting and retaining the next generation of top earners – young people who are unattached to place and looking for opportunities to build their careers and their lives.
From Salon ● Dec. 5, 2025
Firefighters soaked hay in diesel fuel, then set fire to what remained of the unattached home that evening in a “controlled burn.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 24, 2025
The message of the book is that the Iks have transformed themselves into an irreversibly disagreeable collection of unattached, brutish creatures, totally selfish and loveless, in response to the dismantling of their traditional culture.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
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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.
