unfettered

adjective

un·​fet·​tered ˌən-ˈfe-tərd 

: not controlled or restricted : free, unrestrained

unfettered access to the Senate.

—Joshua Miller

… an approach to reading which combined passion and empathy with free-ranging enthusiasm and unfettered curiosity.

—Jonathan Keates

If popular government is about anything, it is about the unfettered right of the voters to choose their leaders.

—Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

… few voices in modern American intellectual life have challenged the primacy of the unfettered individual.

—Walter Shapiro

Did you know?

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

Recent Examples on the Web

The rules would allow most European countries, Japan and other close U.S. allies to make unfettered purchases of A.I. chips, while blocking two dozen adversaries, like China and Russia, from buying them. —Ana Swanson, New York Times, 9 Jan. 2025

Combine this with social media and access to unfettered information, and users find themselves in a strange situation. —Callum Booth, Forbes, 9 Jan. 2025

Why does this guy have why does this guy have unfettered access to President Trump? —David Faris, Newsweek, 27 Dec. 2024

On Tuesday, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm issued a statement based off a new study that unfettered exports of LNG could increase prices domestically and increase carbon emissions. —Josh Boak and Raf Casert The Associated Press, arkansasonline.com, 21 Dec. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1602, in the meaning defined above

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