tied

1. 1
   verb

   Past tense and past participle of tie.

   They tied ribbons around the gateposts for the festival.

   The two climbers tied themselves together for safety on the ridge.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs: the simple past (they tied the rope) and the past participle after have or be (the knot was tied). The participle carries every meaning of the verb, from knots and fastenings to drawing level in a competition. In that last meaning, tied with someone is the general pattern, while tied someone, with a direct object, is marked as US usage.

2. 2
   adjective

   Describing a game or contest that ended with equal scores and no clear winner.

   The tied series forced a deciding game on Sunday afternoon.

   Officials recorded the tied result and scheduled a rematch for the following week.

   Similardrawn, level, even, square

   Note

   The scoreboard sense, used before nouns such as score, game or series. A tied score may need breaking: Larry Powell and Tom Garrett, writing on the films of John G. Avildsen, describe one that will require a "sudden death" round. After a verb (the game was tied), it is hard to tell from the past tense of tie, because the verb itself means drawing level with an opponent.

3. 3
   adjective

   Closely associated or connected with another person, group, or thing.

   The town's fortunes were tied to the fate of the local mill.

   Her reputation became tightly tied to the early work that made her famous.

   Similarlinked, connected, bound, tethered, attached

   Oppositeunconnected, unrelated, independent, detached

   Note

   It takes degree freely: people are strongly tied, more tied, too tied. It usually takes to (financially tied to West Germany) or pairs with together, as when the New York Daily News in 1995 quoted a player saying Houston "was more tied together as a team than us." Degree adverbs such as closely, tightly and strongly are its natural company.

4. 4
   adjective

   Limited or constrained, with freedom of action held back by rules or circumstances.

   Reporters complained of being tied by the new restrictions on access.

   A heavily tied grant left the researchers little room to improvise.

   Similarconstrained, restricted, limited, bound, hamstrung

   Oppositefree, unrestricted, unconstrained, unfettered

   Note

   Most at home in the idiom one's hands are tied, said of people who would act but cannot. Examples include a county whose hands were "too tied, legally and financially" and a policeman's hands "even more tied" than before. The idiom readily takes degree words, and an adverb such as legally or financially often names what does the tying. Used plainly, the adjective is followed by by, as in tied by the rules.

5. 5
   adjective

   Provided by an employer for use only while one remains employed, usually with conditions attached to how it may be used.

   Many farmhands relied on tied housing that vanished the moment their work ended.

   The apartment was tied to her post at the hospital and reverted when she resigned.

   Note

   The arrangement behind the tied cottage, the farmworker's home that went with the job. Alun Howkins, in The Death of Rural England (2003), notes that farmers long defended such cottages as a perk needed to keep good workers, though the reality for thousands was very different. The same idea of property held on another's terms appears in brewers' tied estates, the network behind the tied pub.

6. 6
   adjective

   Conditional on other agreements being honored, so it holds only while those terms are met.

   The funding remained tied to milestones set out in the original contract.

   Foreign aid was tied to the reforms the government had promised to deliver.

   Similarconditional, contingent, dependent, linked

   Oppositeuntied, unconditional

   Note

   Development economists speak of tied aid: help that holds only while other agreements are kept. Colin H. Kirkpatrick and John Weiss (1996) name two ways it can undermine aid's value to the recipient, which are overpricing and distorting the nature of the aid itself. Before a noun the adjective stands alone. After one, it takes to and names the condition, as in aid tied to reforms.

7. 7
   adjective

   Of a pub or bar, required to sell beer from a single brewery, or alcoholic drinks from just one pub company.

   Regulars grumbled that the tied house never offered any local ales.

   As a tied pub, the place was barred from buying cheaper beer elsewhere.

   Oppositefree

   Note

   A term from the liquor trade, almost always heard in tied house or tied pub. Its opposite is the free house, which may buy from any supplier it chooses. The tie can run in two directions. It may bind the pub to one brewery's beer, or to a pub company, a pubco, that supplies all its alcoholic drinks.

8. 8
   adjective

   Of walls, joined at a few points by a single stone that overlaps from one wall into the next, linking the two structures.

   The excavation revealed tied walls where occasional stones bridged the two structures.

   Surveyors noted the tied masonry linking the later addition to the original building.

   Note

   Archaeologists use it when reading how a building went up. At a tied junction, occasional single stones run across from one wall into the other instead of forming a continuous bond. Spotting that pattern helps show how the walls relate. That, in turn, helps sort out the order in which successive construction phases were carried out.

9. 9
   adjective

   Of a stamp on an envelope, proven to belong to that cover because the cancellation mark overlaps from the stamp onto the surrounding paper.

   A tied stamp commands a premium because its link to the cover is beyond doubt.

   The dealer confirmed the stamp was tied, the cancellation crossing onto the paper.

   Oppositeuntied

   Note

   A collector's term of proof. When the postmark cancellation runs off the stamp onto the envelope, the stamp is tied to that cover, showing the two were together when the item went through the post. It works after a verb (the stamp is tied) or before a noun (a tied stamp). Dealers value it as assurance that the stamp was not added to the cover later.

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