unshackle

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to free a person, activity, or system from restrictions, restraints, or control

   The grant could unshackle the researchers from short-term funding demands.

2. 2
   verb

   to loosen or remove the physical shackles from a person or animal

   The guard knelt to unshackle the prisoner's ankles.

Formed in English from un- ('reverse or remove') + shackle. Shackle descends from Old English scacul, 'fetter,' a Germanic word for a restraint placed around a limb. The literal act of removing irons readily developed the figurative sense of freeing a person, mind, institution, or activity from constraint.

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