untie
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Middle English untien, unteyen, untyȝen, untiȝen, from Old English untīġan (“to untie”), equivalent to un- + tie.
Pronunciation[edit]
Verb[edit]
untie (third-person singular simple present unties, present participle untying, simple past and past participle untied)
- (transitive) To loosen, as something interlaced or knotted; to disengage the parts of.
- to untie a knot
- c. 1606–1607, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii], page 367:
- 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.
- 1645, Edmund Waller, To Amoret:
- Sacharissa's captive fain / Would untie his iron chain.
- (transitive) To free from fastening or from restraint; to let loose; to unbind.
- c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
- Though you untie the winds, and let them fight / Against the churches.
- 1651, Jer[emy] Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Francis Ashe […], →OCLC:
- All the evils of an untied tongue we put upon the accounts of drunkenness.
- To resolve; to unfold; to clear.
- 1668, John Denham, Of Prudence (poem)
- They quicken sloth, perplexities untie.
- 1668, John Denham, Of Prudence (poem)
- (intransitive) To become untied or loosed.
- (programming, transitive) In the Perl programming language, to undo the process of tying, so that a variable uses default instead of custom functionality.
- 2002, Dave Roth, Win32 Perl Programming: The Standard Extensions, page 151:
- After you finish with the INI file, all you need to do is untie the hash. Then you really are finished!
Synonyms[edit]
Antonyms[edit]
Translations[edit]
to loosen, as something interlaced or knotted
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to free from fastening or from restraint
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to resolve
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to become untied or loosed
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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Further reading[edit]
- “untie”, in Collins English Dictionary.
- “untie”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
- “untie”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
- “untie”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
Anagrams[edit]
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms prefixed with un- (reversive)
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/aɪ
- Rhymes:English/aɪ/2 syllables
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- English intransitive verbs
- en:Programming