un·strung

(ŭn-strŭng′)

Past tense and past participle of unstring.

adj.

1. Having a string or strings loosened or removed.

2. Informal Emotionally upset.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

unstrung

(ʌnˈstrʌŋ)

adj

1. emotionally distressed; unnerved

2. (Music, other) (of a stringed instrument) with the strings detached

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

un•strung

(ʌnˈstrʌŋ)

v.

1. pt. and pp. of unstring.

adj.

2. weakened or nervously upset, as a person or a person's nerves; unnerved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.

unstrung - emotionally upset; "the incident left him unstrung and incapable of rational effort"

discomposed - having your composure disturbed; "looked about with a wandering and discomposed air"

Translations

unstrung

pret, ptp of unstring

adj

person → demoralisiert, entnervt; nerves → zerrüttet

violin → unbesaitet

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

These were followed by sevenscore archers clad in their bravest Lincoln green, and with their new bows unstrung in token of peace.

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ha!--goin' to get married and the rest-- thought you might be unstrung, eh, a trifle?--nerves just a bit off, you know.

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His bow is in the hall unstrung. No sound is on the hill of his hinds."

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And now, with my nerves already excited and half unstrung, I could not hear those words so sweetly warbled forth without some symptoms of emotion I was not able to suppress.

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Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for a moment I am beyond my own mastery.

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I thought that my nerves were unstrung, and that my imagination was tricking me, and turned resolutely towards the sound of the sea again.

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All that I felt was that I had a right to go in person and beg the Baron's and the Baroness's pardon--the more so since, of late, I had been feeling unwell and unstrung, and had been in a fanciful condition.

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Had the pirates kept together it is certain that they would have won; but the onset came when they were still unstrung, and they ran hither and thither, striking wildly, each thinking himself the last survivor of the crew.

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She was strangely unstrung and shortly thereafter returned to her own quarter of the palace, where she stood for a long time by a window looking out beyond the scarlet tower of Greater Helium toward the northwest.

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"Or monsieur is unstrung. Take mine, monsieur, and try again," and Tarzan offered his pistol, butt foremost, to the astonished De Coude.

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But not alone at this did they laugh, for at the moment of the snap and the turning over, Captain Duncan's unstrung nerves had exploded, causing him to jump as he tensed his whole body.

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So completely were her nerves unstrung, that she started with a cry of alarm on suddenly hearing Frank's voice behind her.

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