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restrain - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Middle English restreinen, a borrowing from Old French restreindre, from Latin rēstringere (“fasten, tighten”).

  • IPA(key): /ɹɪˈstɹeɪn/
  • Rhymes: -eɪn
  • Hyphenation: re‧strain

restrain (third-person singular simple present restrains, present participle restraining, simple past and past participle restrained)

  1. (transitive) To control or keep in check.

    • 1875, Russell Thacher Trall, The Mother's Hygienic Hand-book, page 42:

      As with vicarious mismenstruation, the abnormal cessation only requires strict attention to the general health, with such measures to restrain hemorrhage as have already been indicated.

  2. (transitive) To deprive of liberty.
  3. (transitive) To restrict or limit.

    He was restrained by the straitjacket.

    • 2013 May 17, George Monbiot, “Money just makes the rich suffer”, in The Guardian Weekly‎[1], volume 188, number 23, page 19:

      In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. […]  The public realm is privatised, the regulations restraining the ultra-wealthy and the companies they control are abandoned, and Edwardian levels of inequality are almost fetishised.

to control or keep in check

to deprive of liberty

to restrict or limit

From re- +‎ strain.

restrain (third-person singular simple present restrains, present participle restraining, simple past and past participle restrained)

  1. (transitive) To strain again.

    • 1998, Elena Molokhovets, Classic Russian Cooking, page 360:

      Squeeze the juice from 3 oranges and let the juice stand. Then pour it off, strain, and mix with the syrup. Restrain the liquid and chill in a mold.