trammel
See also: Trammel
English
trammel rings (4) used to hang cooking pots
Etymology
From Middle English trameyle, from Old French tramail (“net for catching fish”), from Late Latin tremaculum. See Italian tramaglio.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈtræməl/
Audio (RP) (file) - Rhymes: -æməl
Noun
trammel (plural trammels)
- Whatever impedes activity, progress, or freedom, such as a net or shackle.
- 1825, Francis Jeffrey, "Campbell's Theodric", in The Edinburgh Review January 1825
- [They] disclaim the trammels of any sordid contract.
- 1898, William Graham Sumner, “The Conquest of the United States by Spain”, in War and Other Essays, Yale, published 1911, page 332:
- The men who came here were able to throw off all the trammels of tradition and established doctrine.
- 1825, Francis Jeffrey, "Campbell's Theodric", in The Edinburgh Review January 1825
- A fishing net that has large mesh at the edges and smaller mesh in the middle
- A kind of net for catching birds, fishes, or other prey.
- 1633, 1609, Richard Carew, The Survey of Cornwall. […], new edition, London: […] B. Law, […]; Penzance, Cornwall: J. Hewett, published 1769, OCLC 752813518:
- The tuck carrieth a like fashion , save that it is narrower meshed , and ( therefore scarce lawful ) with a long bunt in the midst : the trammel differeth not much from the shape of this bunt, and serveth to such use as the wear and haking.
- 1633,
- A set of rings or other hanging devices, attached to a transverse bar suspended over a fire, used to hang cooking pots etc.
- A net for confining a woman's hair.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938:
- Her golden lockes she roundly did uptye
In breaded tramels, that no looser heares
Did out of order stray about her daintie eares.
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- A kind of shackle used for regulating the motions of a horse and making it amble.
- (engineering) An instrument for drawing ellipses, one part of which consists of a cross with two grooves at right angles to each other, the other being a beam carrying two pins (which slide in those grooves), and also the describing pencil.
- A beam compass.
Translations
something that impedes activity, freedom, or progress
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device to suspend cooking pots over a fire
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Verb
trammel (third-person singular simple present trammels, present participle (UK) trammelling or (US) trammeling, simple past and past participle (UK) trammelled or (US) trammeled)
- To entangle, as in a net.
- 1880, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, lines 9-10:
- the scarce-snatched hours
- Which deepening pain left to his lordliest powers: —
- Heaven lost through spider-trammelled prison-bars.
- 1880, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, lines 9-10:
- (transitive) To confine; to hamper; to shackle.
- 1948, Winston Churchill, The Second World War:
- Virtuous motives, trammeled by inertia and timidity, are no match for armed and resolute wickedness.
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Translations
to entangle, as in a net
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to hamper
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Anagrams
- Lammert