trammel

plural trammels

1. Whatever impedes activity, progress, or freedom, such as a net or shackle.

   [They] disclaim the trammels of any sordid contract.

   1825, Francis Jeffrey, “Campbell's Theodric”, in The Edinburgh Review January 1825

   2 more examples

   The men who came here were able to throw off all the trammels of tradition and established doctrine.

   1898, William Graham Sumner, “The Conquest of the United States by Spain”, in War and Other Essays, Yale, published 1911, page 332

   "Also, it would be convenient for spending the night - or, if you find that the trammels of convention still defy the peculiar circumstances, well, maybe we could make it two apartments."

   1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 81

2. A fishing net that has large mesh at the edges and smaller mesh in the middle.
3. A kind of net for catching birds, fishes, or other prey.

   1633, The tuck carrieth a like fashion , save that it is narrower meshed , and ( therefore scarce lawful ) with a long bunt in the midst : the trammel differeth not much from the shape of this bunt, and serveth to such use as the wear and haking.

4. A vertical bar with several notches or chain of rings suspended over a fire, used to hang cooking pots by a hook which has an easily adjustable height.
5. Braids or plaits of hair.

   Her golden lockes she roundly did uptye In breaded tramels, that no looser heares Did out of order stray about her daintie eares.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

6. A kind of shackle used for regulating the motions of a horse and making it amble.
7. engineeringAn instrument for drawing ellipses, one part of which consists of a cross with two grooves at right angles to each other, the other being a beam carrying two pins (which slide in those grooves), and also the describing pencil.
8. A beam compass.

present singular third person trammels · US participle present trammeling · UK participle present trammelling · US participle past trammeled · US past trammeled · UK participle past trammelled · UK past trammelled

1. To entangle, as in a net.

   the scarce-snatched hours Which deepening pain left to his lordliest powers: — Heaven lost through spider-trammelled prison-bars.

   1880, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, lines 9–10

2. transitiveTo confine; to hamper; to shackle.

   Virtuous motives, trammeled by inertia and timidity, are no match for armed and resolute wickedness.

   1948, Winston Churchill, The Second World War

   1 more example

   In their vote, you would get something of some value, at least, however small; but in the other case, only the trammelled judgment of an individual, of no significance, be it which way it might.

   1854, Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

plural Trammels

1. A surname.