Kettling

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A crowd control technique, used by police, where a hostile group of protesters or rioters are surrounded and not allowed to disperse, sometimes with the use of temporary fencing to corral and isolate portions of the group. uncountable, usually

    "These are our young, screaming out in need, meriting not kettling and reprimands, but job prospects and dignity."

  2. 2
    The situation where water gets trapped in the heat exchanger of a boiler (e.g. due to limescale build-up), resulting in knocking sounds as it turns into expanding steam. uncountable, usually
Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of kettle form-of, gerund, participle, present

Synonyms

All synonyms
boilercauldrondrumdrumstickfifekettle hole

Example

More examples

"These are our young, screaming out in need, meriting not kettling and reprimands, but job prospects and dignity."

Related phrases

heat exchanger

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.