unstring

That alone would’ve been enough for me to unstring my racquets and call it a career. 

From Newsweek ● Jun. 21, 2011

That such emotion could so unstring Louis Arnold was a marvel.

From Other Things Being Equal by Emma Wolf

The scene is one to strike dumb with awe, or to unstring the nerves; one might stand in silent astonishment, another would burst into tears.

From Our Italy by Charles Dudley Warner

Away then to loosen, to unstring the divine bow, so tense, so long.

From Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

But the constant mental fever under which he laboured was beginning to undermine a naturally-robust constitution, and to unstring the nerves of a well-made, powerful frame.

From The Golden Dream Adventures in the Far West by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne

Tim Reardon, unstringing two of the pickerel from the rope, transferred them to a twig of alder that he cut from a near by bush, and handed them to her.

From The Rival Campers Ashore The Mystery of the Mill by Ruel Perley Smith

The remembered fact brought with it a degradation of mind and body—a complete unstringing of the moral fibres, which made even revenge seem an impossible output of energy.

From The History of David Grieve by Mrs. Humphry Ward

His liveliest sallies, his bitterest jests, were all reserved for these occasions, so that mirth or anger was forever unstringing the nerves of his competitors, and diminishing their chance of gain.

From Bred in the Bone by James Payn

Uncle says that after you have been at work very hard it’s like unstringing the bow; and so it is.

From The Ocean Cat's Paw The Story of a Strange Cruise by W. S. (Walter S.) Stacey

The archers, flushed and merry, were unstringing their bows once more, for in spite of the water glue the damp air took the strength from the cords.

From Sir Nigel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

By the time Gilgamesh sets out in search of immortality, he is already unstrung.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026

He also wore a fur pelt around his neck and carried an unstrung wooden archery bow.

From Washington Times ● Jul. 13, 2023

That is not to say it’s historically unstrung along the lines of “The Great” or “Bridgerton” or Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette”; generally speaking, it stays put within its period.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2021

We’ll leave our gloves, with their humble histories, just as they are, somewhat unstrung by time and use, like us.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 30, 2021

A whole row of unstrung bows in varying stages of repair or build rested on a worktable, and hundreds of bushels of arrows were stacked into pyramids on the floor beside them.

From Anya and the Nightingale by Sofiya Pasternack