unfettered
adjective
Joshua MillerJonathan KeatesArthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.Walter Shapiro
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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
Jim Cramer, CNBC, 11 May 2025
Obviously that sort of unfettered emotion won’t do in England, and Glasner was booked for it.
—Nick Miller, New York Times, 11 May 2025
That is the operation of the federal government right now, where billionaires have unfettered access to power.
—Alice Yin, Chicago Tribune, 11 May 2025
And the citizenry can only be informed by a press that can report and do — report on affairs of the republic free and unfettered.
—Paul Bedard, The Washington Examiner, 3 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for unfettered
Cite this Entry
“Unfettered.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unfettered. Accessed 16 May. 2025.
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