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:
Granted it’s one in which Neill, strapped in a straitjacket, screams things like “I’m not insane!”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 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
For all its aspiration of freedom, it is a straitjacket that cannot be removed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026
It makes the whole project less overwhelming — more a compass than a straitjacket.
From Salon ● Sep. 9, 2025
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
He also became an escape artist in the manner of Harry Houdini, thrilling crowds by extricating himself from straitjackets, bank safes and jails.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 21, 2020
Then the lights went up, the walkways started moving, and out came the models — barefoot, staring catatonically ahead, in white clothing that resembled nothing so much as straitjackets of many styles.
From New York Times ● Sep. 23, 2019
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
Try that as one of 47 straitjacketed senators.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2025
Straightened, dredged and straitjacketed the rivers with levees.
From Seattle Times ● May 29, 2022
Today, the Mississippi is little more than a massive canal, straitjacketed by earthen walls and traversed by massive freighters moving cargo bound for places as far north as Wisconsin.
From Science Magazine ● Apr. 22, 2021
While the Romantics message each other, straitjacketed lunatics cavort onto Alfred Schatz’s decrepit set, accompanied by live musicians.
From New York Times ● Dec. 11, 2017
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
Threats of "we will strike" commit us to further straitjacketing the school systems with more specialization.
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.
