From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishtetherteth‧er1 /ˈteðə $ -ər/ noun [countable] 1 → be at the end of your tether2 TAa rope or chain that an animal is tied to so that it can only move around within a limited area
Examples from the Corpus
tether• In fact, the community was near the end of its financial tether.• At the end of their financial tether, they converted Outward Bound into a charter yacht.• By then Diana was truly at the end of her tether.• The bull had got loose from his tether.• Five hours later Mr Humble was at the end of his tether.• With all that had happened with Anthony, he was near the end of his tether.• However, at other times I feel at the end of my tether.• Then I reached them, seized them, ripped them free of their tethers, and flung them to the embankment.tethertether2 verb [transitive] 1 TATIEto tie an animal to a post so that it can only move around within a limited area2 technical to use a mobile phone to make a computer able to connect with the Internet→ See Verb tableExamples from the Corpus
tether• He stood up and walked beside her to the edge of the wood where his horse was tethered.• The farmer tethered a goat in the field and left it there for the day.• With Amantani fresh in my mind it seemed to me that more than the cattle were tethered here.• At the first steep slope of Great Ararat they tethered their horses to a thorn tree and hobbled them.• One Victorian explorer reported that he could catch these cats and tether them near his food stores to keep the rats down.• My horse had been tethered to a post, but somehow it escaped.• Though designed by the master modernist, Richard Meier, Getty Center appears intentionally tethered to the past.Origin tether1 (1300-1400) Old Norse tjothr 