untie
/ʌnˈtaɪ/verb
untie is spelled U-N-T-I-E: 5 letters and 2 syllables. It appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 52,337th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, untie means “To loosen, as something interlaced or knotted; to disengage the parts of” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in untie?
| Letters | 5: U-N-T-I-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 3 million words; the 52,337th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is untie?
Untie appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 52,337th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce untie?
- /ʌnˈtaɪ/
Untie has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-untie.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with untie?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as untie.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: unite.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of untie
- unties present, singular, he/she/it
- untying participle, present
- untied participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does untie mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
To loosen, as something interlaced or knotted; to disengage the parts of.
to untie a knot
- 2
To free from fastening or from restraint; to let loose; to unbind.
- 3
To resolve; to unfold; to clear.
They quicken sloth, perplexities untie.
- 4
To become untied or loosed.
- 5
In the Perl programming language, to undo the process of tying, so that a variable uses default instead of custom functionality.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Untie in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | détacher, délier |
| German | losbinden , losmachen , aufklären, auflösen, beschließen, beseitigen |
| Portuguese | desamarrar, desatar , resolver , soltar |
| Spanish | desatar, desamarrar, desligar, desanudar , soltar |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does untie come from?
From Middle English untien, unteyen, untyȝen, untiȝen, from Old English untīġan (“to untie”), equivalent to un- + tie.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).