unstring
Americanverb
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to remove the strings of
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(of beads, pearls, etc) to remove or take from a string
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to weaken or enfeeble emotionally (a person or his nerves)
Etymology
Origin of unstring
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.
See Examples For:
That alone would’ve been enough for me to unstring my racquets and call it a career.
From Newsweek ● Jun. 21, 2011
Away then to loosen, to unstring the divine bow, so tense, so long.
From Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman
Meantime, as if fearful that the continuance of the scene might too much unstring his master, the servant seemed anxious to terminate it.
From The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville
What I have recently gone through with is quite enough to unstring the nerves of a stronger woman than I am, and what must be my condition?
From An Arkansas Planter by Opie Percival Read
And this wave of passion that ran through his veins seemed to unstring his nerves, weaken his purpose, and cast a mist of love over his courage.
From The Strand Magazine, Vol. 27, No. 161, May 1904 by Various
There was something horrible, unnatural in the silence, and I felt fear run down my back like ice, unstringing my muscles, sucking my heart.
From The Courtship of Morrice Buckler A Romance by A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason
The remembered fact brought with it a degradation of mind and body—a complete unstringing of the moral fibres, which made even revenge seem an impossible output of energy.
From The History of David Grieve by Mrs. Humphry Ward
The archers, flushed and merry, were unstringing their bows once more, for in spite of the water glue the damp air took the strength from the cords.
From Sir Nigel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument.
From Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore
His liveliest sallies, his bitterest jests, were all reserved for these occasions, so that mirth or anger was forever unstringing the nerves of his competitors, and diminishing their chance of gain.
From Bred in the Bone by James Payn
By the time Gilgamesh sets out in search of immortality, he is already unstrung.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
He also wore a fur pelt around his neck and carried an unstrung wooden archery bow.
From Washington Times ● Jul. 13, 2023
He also said he carried an unstrung archery bow “to signify his peaceful intent.”
From Washington Post ● Aug. 19, 2022
That is not to say it’s historically unstrung along the lines of “The Great” or “Bridgerton” or Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette”; generally speaking, it stays put within its period.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2021
A whole row of unstrung bows in varying stages of repair or build rested on a worktable, and hundreds of bushels of arrows were stacked into pyramids on the floor beside them.
From Anya and the Nightingale 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.
