untie

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English unteien, also untyen,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English untīgan, also untīegan,^{[5][6][7][3][8]} formed from Old English un- + tīgan (“to tie”), with the prefix of reversal.^[5][2][4] The Old English verb tīgan is the ancestor of tie,^[2][3] and comes from Proto-Germanic *taugijaną,^[1][6] from Proto-Indo-European *dewk- (“to lead, draw”).^[1][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To release something by undoing a cord or similar fastening: in Old English, in the West Saxon Gospels at Matthew 21,^[5] and Bosworth–Toller quotes it of a tethered ass's colt.^[8] Ælfric's Grammar glosses it with Latin solvō.^[8] Dictionary.com dates the word to before 1000,^[9] and Merriam-Webster to before the 12th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline gives "untether, unleash, set free" for the Middle English verb, as well as undoing a knot.^[2] The object could also be the thing bound: from about 1450 the verb meant to free something from a confining cord.^[5] A figurative use appears in Gower in 1390.^[5] The sense of undoing the knot or cord itself has its first quotation in Spenser's Faerie Queene (1590),^[5] and the Shorter Oxford also places it in the late 16th century.^[10] This use produced the figurative sense of solving a difficulty, often with knot, from before 1586,^[5] and of dissolving a bond of union, recorded from 1609.^[5] Johnson (1755) listed four senses: to free from bonds, to loosen from a knot, to free from an obstruction, and to resolve or clear.^[11] In American drug slang, to untie is to take off the tourniquet used for injecting, recorded from before 1964.^[12]

Timeline

• Old English – to release by undoing a fastening.^[5][8]
• 1390 – figurative uses.^[5]
• c. 1450 – to free from a confining cord or bond.^[5]
• before 1586 – figurative, to solve a difficulty.^[5]
• 1590 – to undo a cord or knot.^[5] Intransitive, to come loose.^[5]
• 1609 – figurative, to dissolve a bond of union.^[5]
• before 1964 – in drug slang, to remove a tourniquet.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To undo a knot, or something tied: He sat down to untie his boots.^[13][3][5]
2. To free or detach by undoing a rope or other fastening: She untied the dog from the railing.^[3][5]
3. To free from a restraint or restriction.^[13][3]
4. To solve or clear up a difficulty: to untie the knot.^[3][5][11]
5. Of a knot or something tied, to come undone.^[13][5]
6. (drug slang) To take off the tourniquet used for an injection.^[12]

Related words

• tie
• un-

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins