unfettered

adjective

un·​fet·​tered ˌən-ˈfe-tərd 

: not controlled or restricted : free, unrestrained

unfettered access to the Senate.

—Joshua Miller

… an approach to reading which combined passion and empathy with free-ranging enthusiasm and unfettered curiosity.

—Jonathan Keates

If popular government is about anything, it is about the unfettered right of the voters to choose their leaders.

—Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

… few voices in modern American intellectual life have challenged the primacy of the unfettered individual.

—Walter Shapiro

Did you know?

A fetter is a chain or shackle for the feet (such as the kind sometimes used on a prisoner), or, more broadly, anything that confines or restrains. Fetter and unfetter both function as verbs in English with contrasting literal meanings having to do with the putting on of and freeing from fetters; they likewise have contrasting figurative extensions having to do with the depriving and granting of freedom. The adjective unfettered resides mostly in the figurative, with the word typically describing someone or something unrestrained in progress or spirit. This is how Irish author James Joyce used the word in his 1916 autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man when the character of Cranly recalls to his best friend Stephen what he (Stephen) said he wishes to do in life: "To discover the mode of life or of art whereby your spirit could express itself in unfettered freedom."

Examples of unfettered in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

These scenes of pure, unfettered joy bear particular emotional significance for Wet Leg. —Sophie Williams, Billboard, 10 Oct. 2025

At worst, experts think an unfettered race toward AGI or ASI could lead to widespread catastrophe or even the end of humanity. —Jared Perlo, NBC news, 4 Oct. 2025

Sealing the deal averted a potential Azeri invasion to secure unfettered access after Azerbaijan’s forces inflicted heavy defeats on Armenia’s army in 2020 and 2023 and pushed 120,000 Armenians out of Nagorno-Karabakh. —Michele Crestani, MSNBC Newsweek, 3 Oct. 2025

This precise example neatly encapsulates the danger of allowing vast and unfettered media consolidation. —Ted Johnson, Deadline, 30 Sep. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1602, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for unfettered

• bettered
• fettered
• lettered
• unlettered

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