Definition of unfettered
:free, unrestrained
- unfettered access
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unfettered was our Word of the Day on 06/07/2012. Hear the podcast!
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Recent Examples of unfettered from the Web
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Grenfell has become a grisly metaphor for all that is squalid about the British capital, unfettered free-market capitalism, and society at large.
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The WMATA's guidelines give the agency unfettered discretion to decide which positions are too controversial to appear in ads, and that seems hard to square with the First Amendment.
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But the Swiss model doesn’t include the unfettered EU access for the finance sector that’s so important to the U.K. And the EU might be reluctant to negotiate an even more complex version of Switzerland’s arrangement.
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But for the unfettered truth, independent media outlets remain the No. 1 source for news on a respective team.
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The only consensus among parents about the right age for a child to have unfettered access to a smartphone is that there is no magic number.
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But putting another check into the system—removing one person's unfettered ability to destroy the world—will create another essential, lasting safeguard for the U.S. and the planet.
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Say goodbye to Evite, Shutterfly, to personal blogs, to eBay, and perhaps to an unfettered social media.
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That has meant a great deal of local autonomy for Hong Kong, including an independent judicial system, unfettered capitalism, a free press, and personal freedom of expression.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'unfettered.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Did You Know?
A fetter is a chain or shackle for the feet (as on a prisoner), or, more broadly, anything that confines or restrains. The word derives from Middle English "feter" and shares a relationship with Old English fot, meaning "foot." In current English "unfettered" typically suggests that someone or something is figuratively "unchained," or unrestrained in progress or spirit. The poet John Donne is believed to have been the first to use "unfettered" in this way, in his 1601 work The Progress of the Soule: "To an unfetterd soules quick nimble hast / Are falling stars, and hearts thoughts, but slow pac'd."
First Known Use of unfettered
1601
UNFETTERED Defined for English Language Learners
unfettered
play
adjective
Definition of unfettered for English Language Learners
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: not controlled or restricted
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