straitjacket
Americannoun
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a garment made of strong material and designed to bind the arms, as of a violently disoriented person.
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anything that severely confines, constricts, or hinders.
Conventional attitudes can be a straitjacket, preventing original thinking.
verb (used with object)
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straitjackets,
present (3rd person singular)
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straitjacketed,
past participle, past
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straitjacketing
present participle
noun
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Also called: straightjacket. a jacket made of strong canvas material with long sleeves for binding the arms of violent prisoners or mentally ill patients
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a severe restriction or limitation
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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straitjacketsimple
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straitjacketssimple
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have straitjacketedperfect
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has straitjacketedperfect
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am straitjacketingprogressive
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are straitjacketingprogressive
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is straitjacketingprogressive
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have been straitjacketingperfect progressive
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has been straitjacketingperfect progressive
Past
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straitjacketedsimple
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had straitjacketedperfect
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was straitjacketingprogressive
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were straitjacketingprogressive
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had been straitjacketingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of straitjacket
Explanation
A jacket-shaped restraint that's meant to confine a violent person safely is called a straitjacket. Straitjackets were once commonly used in psychiatric hospitals. These days you're much more likely to see a straitjacket used as a prop in magic show than in a hospital. Illusionists use straitjackets to perform escape tricks, since they're famously difficult (if not impossible) to wriggle out of. Straitjackets are made of sturdy material and hold the wearer's arms tightly against the body. Before the invention of modern psychiatric medicines and techniques, mentally ill patients were frequently restrained in straitjackets to protect themselves and others.
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 fate of a franchise depends on cramming them into a vast, complex puzzle of resource allocation that’s harder to navigate than a swimming pool in a straitjacket.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
In a nod to business leaders, he has promised to shield entrepreneurs "from an unbearable fiscal and regulatory straitjacket".
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026
“I feel trapped in a tuxedo, like I have claustrophobia,” Almodóvar says, hugging his body as if he’s wearing a straitjacket.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 11, 2026
Locking money into a restricted account felt like voluntarily returning to the kind of financial straitjacket they just escaped, he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 31, 2026
I looked over at the next desk and saw a girl sitting there, also wearing a straitjacket.
From "The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan
These included freeing himself from chains, ropes, and straitjackets under water.
From BBC ● Apr. 11, 2025
This extends to the actual garments, items like argyle straitjackets that many would consider too wacky to wear.
From New York Times ● Mar. 4, 2022
If Corsi and Fenwick get me, call the guys with the straitjackets.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 30, 2020
To start: Immobile models were conveyed down a moving runway wearing white canvas straitjackets - the most extreme expression of the uniforms that Alessandro Michele called “a strong sign of oppression.”
From Washington Times ● Sep. 22, 2019
Straitlaced people who go over the edge may find themselves in straitjackets.
From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner
It’s the one that feels most weirdly and defiantly its own thing, the one least straitjacketed by Marvel conventions.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 28, 2023
Straightened, dredged and straitjacketed the rivers with levees.
From Seattle Times ● May 29, 2022
Glass’s lyric setting has often felt straitjacketed by attempts to wedge words into his repetitive musical patterns.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 12, 2019
These steep-sided, straitjacketed streams lost the ability to spill onto their floodplains and recharge aquifers.
From Science Magazine ● Jun. 7, 2018
And so it was, that justice handcuffed, straitjacketed, blistered, and impartial, sent from its bed of torture a beam through Cooper's tough hide to his inner heart.
From Hard Cash by Charles Reade
In 1939, as the straitjacketing of the L.A.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 28, 2023
In other words, Cohen accuses traditional sensory science of artificially straitjacketing tasters in order to achieve a false objectivity.
From The Guardian ● May 23, 2018
They seemed to enjoy the idea, he added, “that these forces were straitjacketing them, whether it was true or not.”
From New York Times ● Apr. 5, 2012
The straitjacketing of the Mississippi began with an obnoxious Army engineer named Andrew Humphreys, who lost 3,000 soldiers in the charge at Fredericksburg and later marveled, "I felt more like a god than a man!"
From Time ● May 12, 2011
We end up rooting for him and against ourselves--since all those straitjacketing studio decisions are based on a thorough knowledge of what we will pay for at the box office.
From Time Magazine Archive
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.
