How to Use unshackle in a Sentence

unshackle

verb
  • Both their hands were unshackled.
    — CBS News, 6 Jan. 2026
  • Those who unshackle themselves from the burdens of driving will have a lot more of it.
    — Doug Gordon, The New Republic, 19 Apr. 2023
  • To name the real problems, unshackled by politics or fear.
    — Lisa Bodell, Forbes.com, 13 Aug. 2025
  • On Friday Mangione arrived at court unshackled in his tan prison garb.
    — Lorena O’Neil, Rolling Stone, 30 Jan. 2026
  • David, trying to unshackle his fellow android from servitude, urges him to make music and teaches him how to play a recorder.
    — Jake Coyle, charlotteobserver, 16 May 2017
  • And Comcast has just unshackled itself from a media business that was weighing it down.
    — Rohan Goswami, semafor.com, 29 June 2026
  • Games like this showed how chess heretics were unshackling themselves from dogma—exposing their kings and pushing their h-pawns with abandon!
    — Peter Rubin, Longreads, 26 Apr. 2023
  • Despite their violent and destructive pasts, these men have had the courage to unshackle themselves from their inner prison.
    — Lisa Deaderick, sandiegouniontribune.com, 20 May 2017
  • Promoted as a society unshackled from earthly laws, this town is in fact as unfree as possible.
    — Matthew R. Francis, Scientific American, 26 June 2023
  • The government says the new laws will unshackle farmers and private investment, bringing growth.
    — New York Times, 9 Jan. 2021
  • In their quest to unshackle mind from body, the philosopher-kings needed somewhere to trace their disgusting, desirous urges back to, a vessel for shame and blame.
    — Molly Fischer, The New Yorker, 24 Apr. 2024
  • Recently, many have remarked that our great city stands at a crossroads, ready to unshackle itself from the mistakes of the past but uncertain as to how.
    — Matt Martin, Chicago Tribune, 19 June 2026
  • The defense has also renewed its request for Mangione to sit unshackled at the defense table.
    — Alice Gainer, CBS News, 1 Dec. 2025
  • Reams of rules govern how the best French cheeses are made, but hotter, drier summers may unshackle struggling producers.
    — Catherine Porter, New York Times, 29 Oct. 2023
  • In 2016, the zoo agreed to provide Kaavan with more water and to unshackle him, but little else changed.
    — Rachel Nuwer, Smithsonian Magazine, 21 Apr. 2021
  • Levi, like many others, found Ulysses’ speech to be a sustaining example of the human spirit unshackled.
    — Claudia Roth Pierpont, New Yorker, 24 Nov. 2025
  • One of the best things to happen from the outbreak was the freedom to unshackle from the bonds of being in an office building over 80 hours a day, five days a week.
    — Jack Kelly, Forbes, 29 Sep. 2021
  • At the prison, Van Tassel sat in the interview room and waited for Melissa to be unshackled and strip-searched.
    — Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker, 10 Feb. 2025
  • That calculus explained why Kennedy and Carter joined forces to unshackle the airline industry.
    — Paul Matzko / Made By History, TIME, 29 Dec. 2024
  • In doing so, the killer helped unshackle dark forces—chief among them anti-Semitism—that now threaten to overtake the conservative movement.
    — Yair Rosenberg, The Atlantic, 4 Feb. 2026
  • That willingness to be different, and to unshackle himself from the worry of others in the coaching community, makes for good copy.
    — Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press, 1 Sep. 2017
  • And at the end of that war, in 1989, Iran was able to recover because basically it was unshackled.
    — Isaac Chotiner, New Yorker, 27 Apr. 2026
  • After hours in labor, her doctor decided to break her water, and demanded the guard finally unshackle her leg from the rail of the hospital bed.
    — Samantha Melamed, Philly.com, 10 May 2018
  • Getting it right, unshackling yourself from a loyalty to ideology.
    — Charlotte Alter, TIME, 28 Feb. 2025
  • Many are also looking ahead as the Asian nation looks to unshackle its 14 trillion yuan mutual funds industry.
    — Fortune, 2 Dec. 2019
  • The rapid availability of wireless internet meant more people could unshackle themselves from their rigid office lives and daily commutes.
    — Amanda Mull, The Atlantic, 10 Feb. 2020
  • This tradeoff has helped further unshackle a generation of women from lives filled with little more than compulsory cooking and cleaning.
    — Amanda Mull, The Atlantic, 12 May 2020
  • Rap is a commercial and creative outlet not unshackled from the overarching jingoist predilections binding its place of origin.
    — Craig Jenkins, Vulture, 1 Nov. 2024
  • That year’s Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks display used the song to unshackle a city imprisoned by a pandemic.
    — Alice George, Smithsonian Magazine, 7 Feb. 2025
  • Combs, who wore tan prison clothing to Tuesday’s hearing, appeared without chains around his ankles after his legal team requested the court permit him to be unshackled.
    — John Annese, New York Daily News, 20 Nov. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'unshackle.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: