To unbind means to free something from whatever is holding it together or tying it down. When you unbind a stack of papers, you remove the string, clip, or staple keeping them together. A librarian might carefully unbind an old book to repair its damaged spine, separating the pages from their worn binding.

The word often appears in older stories and historical contexts. Prisoners might be unbound from their chains, or a package unbound from its wrapping. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Aslan is bound to the Stone Table, and later the cords are cut to unbind him.

In computer programming, unbind can mean to disconnect or detach something, like unlinking a keyboard command from a particular function.

The opposite of unbind is bind, which means to tie, fasten, or hold together. When you bind a book, you're attaching all its pages into a single volume. When you unbind it, you're taking it apart again.