FETTER • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Fetter

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/fˈɛtər/ Listen

noun

Fetter n. (Chiefly used in the plural, fetters.)

A chain or shackle for the feet; a chain by which an animal is confined by the foot, either made fast or disabled from free and rapid motion; a bond; a shackle. "(They) bound him with fetters of brass."

Anything that confines or restrains; a restraint. "Passion's too fierce to be in fetters bound."

verb

Fetter v. t.

To put fetters upon; to shackle or confine the feet of with a chain; to bind. "My heels are fettered, but my fist is free."

To restrain from motion; to impose restraints on; to confine; to enchain; as, fettered by obligations. "My conscience! thou art fettered More than my shanks and wrists."

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Etymology of 'Fetter'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Fetter" Quotes from Famous Books

... love none other. You wouldn't think it, to look at him now, but I assure you it is so. France is filled with the women he once loved. The provincial towns are dotted with them. I know eight—eight exist to my personal knowledge. Sometimes a couple live together, united by the indissoluble fetter of a Senbrook betrayal. They know their lives are broken, and they are content that their lives should be broken. They have loved Senbrook, therefore there is nothing to do but retire to France. You may think ...

— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... doing some unlawful deed there and then: as when a man prevents another from throwing himself over a precipice, or from striking another. But to him alone who has the right of disposing in general of the actions and of the life of another does it belong primarily to imprison or fetter, because by so doing he hinders him from doing not only evil but also good ...

— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... deemed its power Could fetter me another hour. Ah, thoughtless! how could I forget Its causes were around me yet? For wheresoe'er I looked, the ...

— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... for the poor, to destroy slavery and oppression, and establish liberty. Rejoice, ye poor, taught hitherto that ye were made only for the service of the rich; there is glad tidings for you. Rejoice, captives and slaves, "bruised" with the lash and fetter; God comes "to preach deliverance to the captives, liberty to them that are bruised, and the acceptable year (the ...

— Is Slavery Sanctioned by the Bible? • Isaac Allen

... book of George Eliot's is so filled and inspired by the spirit of her teachings as The Spanish Gypsy. Its inspiration and its interest lie mainly in the direction of its moral and spiritual inculcations. Verse did not stimulate her, but was a fetter; it clogged her highest powers. The rich eloquence of her prose, with its pathos and sentiment, its broad perspective and vigorous thought, was to her a continual stimulus and incentive. Her poems are more labored than her novels, and for this very reason they show the philosophy ...

— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

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