fetter

The clarity and lack of fetter is characteristic of Ullmann’s way of seeing the world in prose and, in this case, of seeing the self as a third person.

From New York Times ● Jan. 10, 2019

At another point, the actor becomes one of two mortarboard-wearing orators who pull at the straps that fetter two shocked listeners.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 19, 2016

And the commission stated it was not seeking to fetter the charity's discretion to fund Cage "for all time regardless of changing circumstances".

From BBC ● Oct. 21, 2015

Not only did I beat the seasons, the Somerset clay, and the confusing, unpredictable temperaments of my plants, I overcame Walter’s dogged campaign to rein me in, to fetter my unexpected, late-flowering creativity.

From Slate ● Mar. 18, 2015

In the black iron fetter about his wrist, the ruby seemed to pulse.

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin

“We seek a new revolution,” he said, “not less important, perhaps, in its consequences than that of 1776—a revolution in letters; a shaking off of the fetters of the mind.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025

"I just couldn't break away from the fetters."

From Reuters ● Apr. 13, 2023

Its stage is where King Kong broke his fetters in the 1933 movie.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 8, 2023

Through religion, we are often invited to relive a past trauma as if it is unfolding perpetually in the present; and through the repetition of that trauma, transcend the fetters of its pain.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 8, 2021

Despite his fetters, he manages to sway lightly back and forth.

From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

Both were fettered by entrenched social expectations, leaving little room for anyone who wanted to chart a different course.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 8, 2026

New emblem’s meh, the ex-term smelt; The bevy, recent-Red-Type-Pelt — They’re fettered, hexed; the shell needs shed.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 10, 2022

Despite efforts from the Valkyries and Odin’s ravens, this Viking action art piece is fettered to the ground by the demands of the studio gods.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 18, 2022

It’s a place I can go to stay motivated, stay on track, keep everything fettered and balanced in my life.

From Slate ● Aug. 19, 2020

I looked at him and believed he spoke the truth, he seemed less fettered than he had been before, more modern, more human, he was not hemmed in by shadows.

From "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier

In fact, this is not aid but a handout of leftovers from the master's table made conditional upon fettering obligations .

From Time Magazine Archive

With iron censorship fettering the Press last week, shocking reports circulated by word of mouth throughout the Peninsula and the Isles of Greece.

From Time Magazine Archive

Always had this womanly fettering of man's energy, this affectionate fastening of one down to flowers, this unrighteous forging over of the love-ring into a galley-ring, been to him a crying and odious thing.

From Titan: A Romance Vol. II (of 2) by Jean Paul

But Dryden alone moves unfettered in the fettering couplet—alone of those who have submitted to the fetters.

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 359, September 1845 by Various

All the petty tyrannies to which she had been subject, all the fettering restrictions which had gone to turn servitude into slavery were suddenly fresh in her mind.

From To Win the Love He Sought The Great Awakening: Volume 3 by E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim