Wiktionary

tether

English

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Etymology 1

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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”).

Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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tether (plural tethers)

  1. A rope, cable etc. that holds something in place whilst allowing some movement.
    • 2018, John Kander, Lin-Manuel Miranda, “Cheering For Me Now”, in Hamilton‎[1]:
      We suffer the weather / We bind and we tether / This nation together
  2. (by extension) 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.
  3. (by extension) An attachment to a place, time, entity or person.
    Despite moving, he maintained a strong tether to his culture back home.
    • 1909, Rudyard Kipling, A Song of the English‎[2], London: Hodder & Stoughton, →OCLC, England's Answer, page 227:
      Deeper than speech our love, stronger than life our tether, / But we do not fall on the neck nor kiss when we come together.
    • 2019 August 6, Erik Koreen, “Ask Isaac: Minor hockey can be heaven, other people can be hell”, in New York Times‎[3]:
      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.
    • 2021 June 28, Caitlin Gibson, “What the ‘return to normal’ means for toddlers who no longer remember ‘normal’”, in Washington Post‎[4], archived from the original on 2021-07-05:
      But for toddlers who have now lived nearly 16 months in varying degrees of social isolation, the tether to before has long faded, and they now face after without clear recollections of the world to which they are returning.
  4. (nautical, sailing) A strong rope or line that connects a sailor's safety harness to the boat's jackstay.
Synonyms
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Derived terms
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Translations
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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

Verb

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tether (third-person singular simple present tethers, present participle tethering, simple past and past participle tethered)

  1. (transitive) To restrict with, or as if, with a tether.
    The cowboy tethered his horse outside the saloon.
  2. (transitive) To connect to something else.
    • 2019 May 12, Alex McLevy, “Westeros faces a disastrous final battle on the penultimate Game of Thrones (newbies)”, in The A.V. Club‎[5], archived from the original on 15 May 2019:
      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.
    1. (Internet, transitive) To connect (a smartphone) to a personal computer in order to give the computer access to the phone's Internet connection.
Translations
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Etymology 2

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Numeral

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tether

  1. Alternative form of tethera

Anagrams

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