fetter

Etymology

From Middle English feter, from Old English feter, Proto-West Germanic *fetur, from Proto-Germanic *feturaz (“fetter”), from Proto-Indo-European *ped- (“foot, step”). Cognate with Dutch veter (“lace”). Related to foot.

noun

1. A chain or similar object used to bind a person or animal – often by its legs (usually in plural).
2. (figurative) Anything that restricts or restrains.
   Passion's too fierce to be in fetters bound. 1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe, Prologue
   He looks upon study as an odious fetter; his time is spent in the open air, climbing the hills or rowing on the lake. 1818, Mary Shelley, chapter 6, in Frankenstein, archived from the original on 2013-05-08
   That was the turning-point of my life. I broke my fetters, and I fought a hard fight for a new career … 1910, Erwin Rosen, “Prolog”, in In the Foreign Legion, HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2012

verb

1. (transitive) To shackle or bind up with fetters.
   The Begums' ministers, on the contrary, to extort from them the disclosure of the place which concealed the treasures, were, […] after being fettered and imprisoned, led out on to a scaffold, and this array of terrours proving unavailing, the meek tempered Middleton, as a dernier resort, menaced them with a confinement in the fortress of Chunargar. Thus, my lords, was a British garrison made the climax of cruelties! 1788 June, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, “Mr. Sheridan’s Speech, on Summing Up the Evidence on the Second, or Begum Charge against Warren Hastings, Esq., Delivered before the High Court of Parliament, June 1788”, in Select Speeches, Forensick and Parliamentary, with Prefatory Remarks by N[athaniel] Chapman, M.D., volume I, [Philadelphia, Pa.]: Published by Hopkins and Earle, no. 170, Market Street, published 1808, →OCLC, page 474
2. (transitive) To restrain or impede; to hamper.