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Straitjacket
//ˈstɹeɪtˌd͡ʒækɪt// noun, verb
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A jacket-like garment with very long sleeves which can be secured in place, thus preventing the wearer from moving his or her arms. Often used in psychiatric hospitals to prevent patients from injuring themselves or others.
"There’s a couple of people actually wearing duct-tape straitjackets."
- 2 a garment similar to a jacket that is used to bind the arms tightly against the body as a means of restraining a violent person wordnet
- 3 Any situation seen as confining or restricting. figuratively
"our ever-increasing bureaucratic straitjacket of regulations"
- 4 anything immaterial that severely hinders or confines wordnet
Verb
- 1 To put someone into a straitjacket. literally
"What he asked himself now was,—could Miss Edge and Miss Baker, in order to get him out of the house, have set Birt onto Elizabeth, be in league with the man to break a poor old fellow down by simply driving his sad girl out of her wits? To have her straitjacketted even, muffled in a padded room?"
- 2 To restrict the freedom of, either physically or psychologically. broadly
"Charles for five whole days in a Victorian topper and tailcoat when he practically had to be straitjacketted to get him into tails for a three-hour wedding?"
Etymology
Etymology 1
From strait (“restrictive”) + jacket.
Etymology 2
From strait (“restrictive”) + jacket.
See also for "straitjacket"
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