confiner

plural confiners

1. One who, or that which, limits or restrains.

   2016, “Last Chance for Animals’ Investigation Leads to Animal Cruelty Charges for Marineland Canada,” Press Release dated 4 December, 2016, The undercover investigation exposed inadequate treatment, housing, and care of marine mammals at Marineland, the world’s largest confiner of beluga whales.

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   […] as he attended him through the streets, the common people, and even women, uttered loud exclamations of abuse against him, calling him the murderer of syeds, and confiner of Chaund Sultana.

   1794, Jonathan Scott, transl., Ferishta’s History of Dekkan from the First Mahummedan Conquests, volume I, Shrewsbury, page 311

   […] I hope to gain a friend in you, and that will surely repay, a thousand times, the exertions I have at length happily made to terminate your captivity, which has, I know, been continued, rather from the obstinacy and idleness of your confiners, than any remaining malice against your country, or suspicions of yourself.

   1816, Barbara Hofland, chapter 2, in The Affectionate Brothers, volume 2, London: A.K. Newman, pages 40–41

   The narrow adhesive strips […] are then applied spirally about the leg, as confiners.

   1876, C. Henri Leonard, chapter 11, in A Manual of Bandaging Adapted for Self-Instruction, Detroit: Daily Post, page 122

plural confiners

1. obsoleteA person who lives on the confines, boundary or edge; a neighbour.

   1697, Thomas d’Urfey, The Intrigues of Versailles, London: F. Saunders et al., Act IV, Scene 2, p. , […] darkness is naturally a confiner of fancy; and my Muse has taught me just as people do Starlings: I sing always best when I’ve least light […]

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   1599, Samuel Daniel, The Civil Wars of England, Book 1, Stanza 18, in Poeticall Essayes, London: Simon Waterson, p. 4, So did the worldes proud Mistres Rome at first Striue with a hard beginning, warr’d with need; Forcing her strong Confiners to the worst, And in her bloud her greatnes first did breed:

   […] though Gladnesse, and Griefe, be opposites in Nature; yet they are such Neighbours and Confiners in Arte, that the least touch of a Pensill, will translate a Crying, into a Laughing Face […]

   1624, Henry Wotton, editor, The Elements of Architecture, collected by Henry Wotton Knight, from the Best Authors and Examples, London, Part 2, p. 88

   For being Confiners on the Aetolians, and vsing the same manner of arming, it was thought it would bee a matter of great vtility in the Warre, to haue them in their Armie; for that they knew their manner of fight, and were acquainted with the Country.

   1629, Thomas Hobbes, transl., Eight Bookes of the Peloponnesian Warre written by Thucydides the Sonne of Olorus, London: Henry Seile, Book 3, p. 197

   […] he would soon endeavour to have Ports upon that Sea, as not wanting Materials for Shipping. And […] may be a terrour unto the confiners on that Sea, and to Nations which now conceive themselves safe from such an Enemy.

   1683, Thomas Browne, Certain Miscellany Tracts, London: Charles Mearn, Tract 12, page 187

2. obsoleteA person who lives within the confines; an inhabitant.

   The senate hath stirr’d up the confiners And gentlemen of Italy, most willing spirits, That promise noble service […]

   1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]

3. obsoleteA prisoner incarcerated for a set term.

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   1819, Joseph John Gurney, Notes on a Visit Made to Some of the Prisons in Scotland and the North of England in Company with Elizabeth Fry, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, p. 64, Lancaster Castle […] contains two classes of prisoners; first, the untried, and those sentenced to death or transportation; and secondly, confiners,—persons sent hither for terms of imprisonment and labour.