/ʌnˈtaɪ/
OriginFrom Middle English untien, unteyen, untyȝen, untiȝen, from Old English untīġan (“to untie”), equivalent to un- + tie.
- transitiveTo loosen, as something interlaced or knotted; to disengage the parts of.
“to untie a knot”
“Haſt thou the pretty vvorme of Nylus [an asp] there, / That killes and paines not? / […] / Come thou mortal vvretch, / VVith thy ſharpe teeth this knot intrinſicate, / Of life at once vntye: Poore ven”
“Sacharissa's captive fain / Would untie his iron chain.”
- transitiveTo free from fastening or from restraint; to let loose; to unbind.
“Though you untie the winds, and let them fight / Against the churches.”
“All the evils of an untied tongue we put upon the accounts of drunkenness.”
- To resolve; to unfold; to clear.
“They quicken sloth, perplexities untie.”
- intransitiveTo become untied or loosed.
- transitiveIn the Perl programming language, to undo the process of tying, so that a variable uses default instead of custom functionality.
“After you finish with the INI file, all you need to do is untie the hash. Then you really are finished!”
Formsunties(present, singular, third-person) · untying(participle, present) · untied(participle, past) · untied(past)