Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🗣️ To free mouth ⚖️ To lift restriction
to ungag

to ungag

1 8.6
To end a court order that stops someone from speaking or publishing
  • verb
  • /ʌnˈɡæɡ/
  • Specialized
: levantar la restricción
  • After months of legal battles, they finally ungagged the whistleblower, allowing her to share her findings.

Examples

  • The judge decided to ungag the journalist so she could report on the trial.

  • The court ruling to ungag the documents was a significant victory for press freedom.

  • He ungags Sally.

    Fiction book (1993)

Synonyms

to revoke
vsto ungag
  • Formal
98 6.2

Officially stop something from being valid, for example a license

removes a restriction that prevents someone from speaking or publishing information
to rescind
vsto ungag
  • Formal
48 7.9

Officially cancel a law, order, or agreement

removes a restriction that specifically prevents speaking or publishing information
to unban
vsto ungag
  • Jargon
1 3.5

Allow someone or something to take part again after being blocked

targets limits on speaking or publishing rather than general participation rules

Antonyms

to restrict
188 3.1

Limit how much people can use or access something

to censor
72 5.2

To remove parts of books and films that are offensive or about politics

How Free

to allow
∞ 1.0
to ungag
  • Specialized
1 8.6
to restrain
233 4.6
to silence
177 3.5
to gag
25 7.1

Surface Forms

ungag infinitive
ungagged past
ungagged past participle
ungagging present participle
ungags third person singular

Morphology

ungag = gag (transparent) = un + gag

Negation of a speech restriction ('gag' as a legal/figurative restriction) — the removal sense is directly derived from the base.

Etymology

Ungag is also used for rules or orders: un- means 'remove' and gag means 'to stop speech', so to ungag a witness or the press is to remove the rule that kept them silent and let them speak or publish.