fetter
Americannoun
-
a chain or shackle placed on the feet.
-
Usually fetters. anything that confines or restrains.
Boredom puts fetters upon the imagination.
verb (used with object)
-
fetters,
present (3rd person singular)
-
fettered,
past participle, past
-
fettering
present participle
-
to put fetters upon.
-
to confine; restrain.
noun
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(often plural) a chain or bond fastened round the ankle; shackle
-
(usually plural) a check or restraint
in fetters
verb
-
to restrict or confine
-
to bind in fetters
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
fettersimple
-
fetterssimple
-
have fetteredperfect
-
has fetteredperfect
-
am fetteringprogressive
-
are fetteringprogressive
-
is fetteringprogressive
-
have been fetteringperfect progressive
-
has been fetteringperfect progressive
Past
-
fetteredsimple
-
had fetteredperfect
-
was fetteringprogressive
-
were fetteringprogressive
-
had been fetteringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of fetter
before 900; Middle English, Old English feter; cognate with Old High German fezzera, Old Norse fjǫturr; akin to foot
Explanation
A fetter is a shackle or chain that is attached to someone’s ankles. To fetter someone is to restrict their movement, either literally or metaphorically. You might feel fettered by your parents' rules, even without the chains. A fetter is anything that secures and limits the movement of the feet and legs of a prisoner. To fetter, the verb, could be used literally: the prison wardens would fetter the chain gangs who built many of the railroads in the United States, but it usually means something has been done to restrain someone’s behavior: "we finally managed to fetter our sons’ computer use with bribery."
Vocabulary lists containing fetter
300 Most Difficult "SAT" Words
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"The Cask Of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe
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"The Cask of Amontillado"
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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:
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 its core, it serves to moderate the thrill for new ideas and fetter decision-making with long debates.
From Slate ● May 16, 2017
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
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
Instead the bird struck his temple and slid hot and greasy down his face, and he had to hunker down and stretch for it with fetters clanking.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
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
No refuge between those black stalks, even if she weren’t fettered.
From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead
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
Is there not such between those in the verse descriptive of Young Waters's fettering, and those in the closing stanza of Sir Patrick Spence?
From The Romantic Scottish Ballads: Their Epoch and Authorship by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
He tried to rise from his bed, but some strange heavy weight seemed to lie upon him, fettering him there, so that he could not move.
From The Serapion Brethren, Vol. I. by Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann
And thus will you o'ercome him, fettering His mind with gifts with which his ears are charm'd.
From The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned of Athen?us by Athen?us
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.
