tether
UK/ˈtɛðə//ˈtɛðəɹ/
tether noun: a rope, cable etc. that holds something in place whilst allowing some movement. Also the alternative form of tethera.
Noun
tether (plural tethers)
- A rope, cable etc. that holds something in place whilst allowing some movement.
- With the bulky, heavy helmet for the film strapped on, I was inside a fully immersive virtual world. With de la Peña playing minder and holding a tether which prevented me from bumping into walls, I somehow ended up inside the news story.2013 September 25, Neal Ungerleider, “Put On A Helmet, And You’re In The Story: Why Virtual Reality Journalism Is The Future”, in Fast Company
- We suffer the weather / We bind and we tether / This nation together2018, John Kander, Lin-Manuel Miranda, “Cheering For Me Now”, in Hamilton (Hamildrops)
- The limit of one's abilities, resources, patience, etc.
- Since his hours have increased, I feel that he is at the end of his tether.
- An attachment to a place, time, entity or person.
- Despite moving, he maintained a strong tether to his culture back home.
- Deeper than speech our love, stronger than life our tether, / But we do not fall on the neck nor kiss when we come together.1909, Rudyard Kipling, A Song of the English^(https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Song_of_the_English_(1909)), London: Hodder & Stoughton, →OCLC, England's Answer, page 227
- A strong rope or line that connects a sailor's safety harness to the boat's jackstay.
Verb
tether (third-person singular simple present tethers, present participle tethering, simple past and past participle tethered)
- To restrict with, or as if with, a tether.
- The cowboy tethered his horse outside the saloon.
- To connect to something else.
- The younger Targaryen feels as though she’s lost any intimacy that tethered her to compassion and humanity, and so all that remains is the imperious need to rule that has driven her all these years, now bereft of the warmth that previously tempered her.2019 May 12, Alex McLevy, “Westeros faces a disastrous final battle on the penultimate Game of Thrones (newbies)”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 15 May 2019
- To connect (a smartphone) to a personal computer in order to give the computer access to the phone's Internet connection.
Also used as
tether is also the alternative form of tethera.
tether meaning in Assamese, Tagalog and Malay
tether in Assamese
- rope, cable etc. that holds something in place whilst allowing some movement
- এৰাল eral, পঘা pogha
tether in Tagalog
- rope, cable etc. that holds something in place whilst allowing some movement
- soga
tether in Malay
- rope, cable etc. that holds something in place whilst allowing some movement
- tali tambat, rantai tambat
- limit of one's abilities, resources etc
- buntu fikiran, suntuk fikiran
- to restrict something with or as if with a tether
- tambat
Examples of tether in a sentence
- what tethers us to gravity and light / has most to do with distance and the shapes / we find in water2002, John Burnside, “History”, in The Light Trap, London: Jonathan Cape:
- The tether to our national identity can never feel stronger than it does over a cup of bad arena coffee in the dead of winter.2019 August 6, Erik Koreen, “Ask Isaac: Minor hockey can be heaven, other people can be hell”, in New York Times:
Synonyms of tether
Forms of tether
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | tethers |
| alternative form | tedder |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | tethers |
| present participle | tethering |
| past participle | tethered |
| past | tethered |
Origin of tether
From Middle English tether, teder, from Old English *tēoder and/or Old Norse tjóðr ( > Danish tøjr, Swedish tjuder); both from Proto-Germanic *teudrą (“rope; cord; shaft”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *dewtro-, from Proto-Indo-European *dew- (“to tie”), or from Proto-Indo-European *dewk- (“to pull”). Cognate with North German Tüder (“tether for binding the cattle”), Swedish tjuder (“tether for binding cattle”).
Words formed from tether
- at the end of one’s tether
- detether
- microtether
- tetherin
- tetherless
- retether
- tetherable
- untether
Phrases with tether
Words that rhyme with tether
Questions about tether
- What does tether mean?
- Tether means a rope, cable etc. that holds something in place whilst allowing some movement.
- What is tether in Assamese?
- Tether in Assamese is এৰাল (eral), পঘা (pogha). See Tether meaning in Assamese.
- How do you use tether in a sentence?
- what tethers us to gravity and light / has most to do with distance and the shapes / we find in water
- What part of speech is tether?
- Tether can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce tether?
- Tether is pronounced /ˈtɛðə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of tether?
- The plural of tether is tethers.
Words near tether in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tether (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-tether.ogg.
Cite this entry: “tether.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tether. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.