fetter
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Fetters in use.
English
Etymology
From Middle English feter, from Old English feter, Proto-West Germanic *fetur, from Proto-Germanic *feturaz (“fetter”), from Proto-Indo-European *ped- (“foot, step”). Cognate with Dutch veter (“lace”). Related to foot.
Pronunciation
- (General Australian) IPA(key): /ˈfet.ə/
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈfɛt.ə/
- (US) IPA(key): /ˈfɛt.ɚ/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -ɛtə(ɹ)
Noun
fetter (plural fetters)
- A chain or similar object used to bind a person or animal – often by its legs (usually in plural).
- (figurative) Anything that restricts or restrains.
- 1818, Mary Shelley, chapter 6, in Frankenstein, archived from the original on 8 May 2013:
- He looks upon study as an odious fetter; his time is spent in the open air, climbing the hills or rowing on the lake.
Synonyms
(chains on legs):
Hyponyms
(chain binding generally):
Translations
object used to bind a person or animal by its legs
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anything that restricts or restrains in any way
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
Verb
fetter (third-person singular simple present fetters, present participle fettering, simple past and past participle fettered)
- (transitive) To shackle or bind up with fetters.
- 1788 June, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, “Mr. Sheridan’s Speech, on Summing Up the Evidence on the Second, or Begum Charge against Warren Hastings, Esq., Delivered before the High Court of Parliament, June 1788”, in Select Speeches, Forensick and Parliamentary, with Prefatory Remarks by N[athaniel] Chapman, M.D., volume I, : Published by Hopkins and Earle, no. 170, Market Street, published 1808, →OCLC, page 474:
- The Begums' ministers, on the contrary, to extort from them the disclosure of the place which concealed the treasures, were, […] after being fettered and imprisoned, led out on to a scaffold, and this array of terrours proving unavailing, the meek tempered Middleton, as a dernier resort, menaced them with a confinement in the fortress of Chunargar. Thus, my lords, was a British garrison made the climax of cruelties!
- (transitive) To restrain or impede; to hamper.
Hyponyms
Derived terms
Translations
to shackle or bind up with fetters
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to restrain or impede
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
German
Pronunciation
Adjective
fetter
- comparative degree of fett
- inflection of fett:
Norwegian Bokmål
Etymology
From Middle Low German vedder.
Noun
fetter m (definite singular fetteren, indefinite plural fettere, definite plural fetterne)
- a cousin (male)
Coordinate terms
References
- “fetter” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
Norwegian Nynorsk
Etymology
From Middle Low German vedder.
Noun
fetter m (definite singular fetteren, indefinite plural fetrar, definite plural fetrane)
Coordinate terms
- kusine f (“female cousin”)
References
- “fetter” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.
Swedish
Noun
fetter
- indefinite plural of fett
Vilamovian
Pronunciation
Audio (file) - Hyphenation: fet‧ter
Noun
fetter m (plural fettyn)
- paternal uncle (brother of someone’s father)