Sentence examples for untighten from inspiring English sources
The word "untighten" is correct and usable in written English
You can use it when you want to express that something (generally an object or item) is loosened or less tight than before. For example: "I used a wrench to untighten the bolts on the engine."
verb
To loosen; to make something less tight.
Ties with alters – especially when they have been considered as successful in the past – have been proven difficult to untighten since actors may feel a social obligation to preserve them (Coleman 1988, p. 98; Uzzi 1997, p. 36).
As well as sensitizing the human genome to radiation, HDAC inhibitors could be thought of as drugs capable to untighten the chromatin DNA in order to make it more accessible for classic chemotherapeutic agents, like DNA cross-linkers or alkylating agents.
However, these factors do play a role in determining the relative acceptability of attested un- forms, for example, by distinguishing between un- forms that are frequent and clearly display the appropriate semantics (e.g., unlock, unleash, unpack, and undo) and more marginal cases (e.g., unbandage, uncrumple, undelete, unbelieve, unloosen, and untighten).
That said, it is important to bear in mind that the binary classification of verbs as un-/zero is somewhat artificial, given that many verbs classified as taking un- had very low un- - form frequency in the BNC (e.g., unbandage, uncrumple, undelete, unbelieve, unloosen, and untighten were each attested just once), and so may be less than fully acceptable, at least for some speakers.
"Mister, I cannot breathe …" One of the soldiers came and untightened the belt, not very comfortably but better than nothing.
He has a screw to screw on, he tightens it, gets back off the bike, untightens the screw and puts the running blade on.
He has occasionally left bolts of his chair untightened, hampering his performance.
