Meaning & use
fetter
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Meanings
nounusually pluralold-fashioned
A chain or shackle fastened around a prisoner's ankles to stop them moving freely.
Grammar: Usually plural, fetters, as there are normally two.
Patterns
- in fetters
- a prisoner in fetters
The prisoner was kept in iron fetters.
Rusty fetters hung on the dungeon wall.
The museum displays the fetters once used on slaves.
nounusually pluralfigurativeliterary
Anything that limits a person's freedom or progress.
Grammar: Often followed by of: the fetters of tradition.
Patterns
- the fetters of something
- free from fetters
She wanted to escape the fetters of poverty.
The rules were fetters on creative work.
He broke free of the fetters of his past.
verbtransitiveformal
To restrain or restrict someone or something, either with chains or by limits.
Grammar: Takes an object, and is often passive: fettered by rules.
Patterns
- fetter someone
- be fettered by something
Strict rules fettered the company's growth.
The guards fettered the prisoner's ankles.
She felt fettered by constant supervision.
Word forms
| plural | fetters |
|---|---|
| third person singular | fetters |
| past tense | fettered |
| -ing form | fettering |
Common combinations
- in fetters
- The captive was held in fetters.
- the fetters of tradition
- He felt the fetters of tradition.
- throw off the fetters
- They threw off the fetters of the old regime.
- fettered by regulation
- Small firms are fettered by regulation.
- break the fetters
- The students broke the fetters of conformity.
Synonyms and how they differ
- shackle
- Shackle is the more common word for a metal ring on a limb and is also used figuratively, with little difference.
- chain
- Chain is plain and general, while fetter points to restraint around the ankles or an abstract restriction.
- restraint
- Restraint is a neutral, general word for anything that holds back, with none of fetter's imagery of prison.
- hamper
- Hamper as a verb means to make progress harder, a milder idea than fetter.
Opposites
Word family
- fettered adjective
- held back by chains or limits
- unfettered adjective
- free from limits
- fettering noun
- the act of restraining
- foot noun
- the distant root of fetter, from the idea of the foot
Commonly confused: fetter or fetter? fetter or feather?
fetter vs fetter
Do not confuse fetter with fetter-like words such as better or letter; it rhymes with letter but means a restraint.
fetter vs feather
Feather is a bird's plume and is unrelated, though it looks a little similar.
Practice
The poet wrote of a people who were finally free of the ___ of foreign rule.
Choose one answer.
Fetters of foreign rule means the restraints it imposed. Fenders, feathers and fevers are real words but do not fit the idea of being freed.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “fetter”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.