Meanings
- participlepastsimple past and past participle of unbolt
- not comparableNot fastened with a bolt.
[…] it seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may afterwards be censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief.
1779, Samuel Johnson, “Milton”, in Prefaces Biographical and Critical to the Works of the English Poets, volume 2, London: C. Bathurst, et al, page 46 - not comparableNot sifted.
unbolted flour
1 more example
[The slave] toils that another may reap the fruit; he is industrious that another may live in idleness; he eats unbolted meal that another may eat the bread of fine flour; he labors in chains at home, under a burning sun and biting lash, that another may ride in ease and splendor abroad […]
1855, Frederick Douglass, “. Appendix.”, in My Bondage and My Freedom. […], New York; Auburn, N.Y.: Miller, Orton & Mulligan […], →OCLC, part II (Life as a Freeman), page 430 - figurativelynot comparableobsoleteCoarse, uncultured, vulgar.
My lord, if you’ll give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar and daub the walls of a jakes with him.
c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectivenot firmly fastened or secured
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Translations
Greek αμαντάλωτος
- αμαντάλωτος (amantálotos)not fastened
Cite this entry
unbolted. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unbolted
“unbolted.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unbolted. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “unbolted,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unbolted.
Source: unbolted on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.