untie

verb

/ʌnˈtaɪ/

Etymology

From Middle English untien, unteyen, untyȝen, untiȝen, from Old English untīġan (“to untie”), equivalent to un- + tie.

inherited from untīġan — “to untie”
inherited from untien

Definitions

1
To loosen, as something interlaced or knotted
To loosen, as something interlaced or knotted; to disengage the parts of.
- to untie a knot
- Haſt thou the pretty vvorme of Nylus [an asp] there, / That killes and paines not? / […] / Come thou mortal vvretch, / VVith thy ſharpe teeth this knot intrinſicate, / Of life at once vntye: Poore venomous Foole, / Be angry, and diſpatch.
- Sacharissa's captive fain / Would untie his iron chain.
2
To free from fastening or from restraint
To free from fastening or from restraint; to let loose; to unbind.
- Though you untie the winds, and let them fight / Against the churches.
- All the evils of an untied tongue we put upon the accounts of drunkenness.
3
To resolve
To resolve; to unfold; to clear.
- They quicken sloth, perplexities untie.
›+ 2 more definitionsshow fewer
1. To become untied or loosed.
2. 5
  In the Perl programming language, to undo the process of tying, so that a variable uses…
  In the Perl programming language, to undo the process of tying, so that a variable uses default instead of custom functionality.
  - After you finish with the INI file, all you need to do is untie the hash. Then you really are finished!

The neighborhood

synonymunfasten
antonymtie

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at untie. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

A definitional loop anchored at untie. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

9 hops · closes at untie

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA