enchain
Americanverb (used with object)
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enchains,
present (3rd person singular)
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enchained,
past participle, past
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enchaining
present participle
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to bind in or as in chain or chains; fetter; restrain.
to be enchained by ignorance and superstition.
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to hold fast, as the attention.
verb
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to bind with chains
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to hold fast or captivate (the attention, etc)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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enchainsimple
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enchainssimple
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have enchainedperfect
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has enchainedperfect
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am enchainingprogressive
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are enchainingprogressive
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is enchainingprogressive
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have been enchainingperfect progressive
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has been enchainingperfect progressive
Past
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enchainedsimple
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had enchainedperfect
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was enchainingprogressive
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were enchainingprogressive
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had been enchainingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of enchain
1350–1400; Middle English < Anglo-French, Old French enchainer, enchaener. See en- 1, chain
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
As Johnson wrote, “to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride, unwilling to measure its desires by its strength.”
From Slate ● May 31, 2012
At every approach of horseman, cart, or carriage, I turned fearfully, certain I should see some minister of injustice come to enchain us.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
Tie your knots, she sang again and again, enchain! — enchain! — enchain me!
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson
Surely with these you can enchain a man's heart.
From Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales Second Series by Andersen, H. C. (Hans Christian)
His imagination could bear them to a giddy hight on its elastic wing, or he could enchain their judgment by the strong links of his logic.
From Sketches of Reforms and Reformers, of Great Britain and Ireland by Stanton, Henry B.
Du N. Are words denied the heart Of firmest mould, or what enchains my tongue?
From Joan of Arc A Play in Five Acts by Sargant, Jane Alice
Can this be delusion, or infatuation, or is it a species of witchery that thus deceives, enchains, and blinds a people, in all other respects of quick imagination and natural talents?
From Auricular Confession and Popish Nunneries Volumes I. and II., Complete by Hogan, William
Not worse when we have learnt to see so clearly, and most of us acknowledge that It is our will Which thus enchains us to permitted ill!
From Ideala by Grand, Sarah
At the same time that it unchains princes and breaks for them the ties of the social pact, it enchains the minds and the hands of their oppressed subjects.
From Superstition In All Ages (1732) Common Sense by Knoop, Anna
There is nothing that so fascinates and enchains the imagination of men as power in another man.
From Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 by Warner, Charles Dudley
When we first encounter the character, enchained in the dungeon at the opening of Act II, Florestan rises from exhaustion and cries out, “Gott! welch’ Dunkel hier!”
From New York Times ● Mar. 17, 2017
“With regard to black people, I think they are tired of seeing themselves enchained and downtrodden.”
From New York Times ● May 18, 2016
If my imagination weren't enchained by so much witless tradition and conformity, I might tag this segment to some more majestic and impromptu pattern of my own devising, one that reaches clear across the ecliptic.
From Slate ● Jul. 12, 2012
Yet Berger's children of enchained emotions project their fancy into a world of living color, an incarnation of their wildest dreams.
From Time Magazine Archive
Eisman was enchained, however, by FrontPoint Partners and, by extension, Morgan Stanley.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
The Labour Statutes proved as ineffective as of old in enchaining labour or reducing its price.
From History of the English People, Volume II The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 by Green, John Richard
Le Loutre made no answer, for now events on the battlefield were enchaining every eye.
From The Raid from Beausejour; and How the Carter Boys Lifted the Mortgage by Roberts, Charles George Douglas, Sir
The disfranchised conscience in a smooth, unresisting world, becomes an enchaining conversation, an all-narrating fable.
From Henry of Ofterdingen: A Romance. by Hardenberg, Friedrich von
"A novel of purpose as well as an enchaining romance."
From The Black Pearl by Woodrow, Wilson, Mrs.
If he could but get rid of his present standard of what is right and good in thought and language, and preach them with the enchaining fire with which he preached them once!
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 46, August, 1861 by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
