Definition of "trammel"

trammel

/ˈtræməl/

noun
plural trammels
1. Whatever impedes activity, progress, or freedom, such as a net or shackle.
  Quotations
  [They] disclaim the trammels of any sordid contract.
  1825, Francis Jeffrey, “Campbell's Theodric”, in The Edinburgh Review January 1825
  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
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.
  Quotations
  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.
  1609, Richard Carew, The Survey of Cornwall. […], new edition, London: […] B. Law, […]; Penzance, Cornwall: J. Hewett, published 1769
4. A set of rings or other hanging devices, attached to a transverse bar suspended over a fire, used to hang cooking pots etc.
5. A net for confining a woman's hair.
  Quotations
  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
6. A kind of shackle used for regulating the motions of a horse and making it amble.
7. (engineering) An 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.
verb
third-person singular simple present trammels, present participle (UK) trammelling or (US) trammeling, simple past and past participle (UK) trammelled or (US) trammeled
1. To entangle, as in a net.
  Quotations
  the scarce-snatched hoursWhich 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. (transitive) To confine; to hamper; to shackle.
  Quotations
  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
  Virtuous motives, trammeled by inertia and timidity, are no match for armed and resolute wickedness.
  1948, Winston Churchill, The Second World War

Definition of "trammel"

trammel

noun

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verb

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