Crossword clues for shackle
shackle
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Shackle \Shac"kle\, n. [Generally used in the plural.] [OE. schakkyll, schakle, AS. scacul, sceacul, a shackle, fr. scacan to shake; cf. D. schakel a link of a chain, a mesh, Icel. sk["o]kull the pole of a cart. See Shake.]
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Something which confines the legs or arms so as to prevent their free motion; specifically, a ring or band inclosing the ankle or wrist, and fastened to a similar shackle on the other leg or arm, or to something else, by a chain or a strap; a gyve; a fetter.
His shackles empty left; himself escaped clean.
--Spenser. -
Hence, that which checks or prevents free action.
His very will seems to be in bonds and shackles.
--South. -
A fetterlike band worn as an ornament.
Most of the men and women . . . had all earrings made of gold, and gold shackles about their legs and arms.
--Dampier. A link or loop, as in a chain, fitted with a movable bolt, so that the parts can be separated, or the loop removed; a clevis.
A link for connecting railroad cars; -- called also drawlink, draglink, etc.
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The hinged and curved bar of a padlock, by which it is hung to the staple.
--Knight.Shackle joint (Anat.), a joint formed by a bony ring passing through a hole in a bone, as at the bases of spines in some fishes.
Shackle \Shac"kle\, n.
Stubble. [Prov. Eng.]
--Pegge.
Shackle \Shac"kle\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Shackled; p. pr. & vb. n. Shackling.]
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To tie or confine the limbs of, so as to prevent free motion; to bind with shackles; to fetter; to chain.
To lead him shackled, and exposed to scorn Of gathering crowds, the Britons' boasted chief.
--J. Philips. -
Figuratively: To bind or confine so as to prevent or embarrass action; to impede; to cumber.
Shackled by her devotion to the king, she seldom could pursue that object.
--Walpole. -
To join by a link or chain, as railroad cars. [U. S.]
Shackle bar, the coupling between a locomotive and its tender. [U.S.]
Shackle bolt, a shackle.
--Sir W. Scott.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Old English sceacel "shackle, fetter," probably also in a general sense "a link or ring of a chain," from Proto-Germanic *skakula- (cognates: Middle Dutch, Dutch schakel "link of a chain, ring of a net," Old Norse skökull "pole of a carriage"), of uncertain origin. According to OED, the common notion of "something to fasten or attach" makes a connection with shake unlikely. Figurative use from early 13c. Related: Shackledom "marriage" (1771); shackle-bone "the wrist" (1570s).
mid-15c., from shackle (n.). Figurative use from 1560s. Related: Shackled; shackling.
Wiktionary
n. 1 A restraint fit over a human or animal appendage, such as a wrist, ankle or finger. Usually used in plural, to indicate a pair joined by a chain; a hobble. 2 A U-shaped piece of metal secured with a pin or bolt across the opening, or a hinged metal loop secured with a quick-release locking pin mechanism. 3 (context figuratively usually in plural English) A restraint on one's action, activity, or progress. 4 A fetter-like band worn as an ornament. 5 A link for connecting railroad cars; a drawlink or draglink. 6 stubble vb. 1 To restrain using shackle#Noun; to place in shackles. 2 By extension, to render immobile or incapable; to inhibit the progress or abilities of someone or something.
WordNet
n. a restraint that confines or restricts freedom (especially something used to tie down or restrain a prisoner) [syn: bond, hamper, trammel, trammels]
a U-shaped bar; the open end can be passed through chain links and closed with a bar
v. bind the arms of [syn: pinion]
restrain with fetters [syn: fetter]
Wikipedia
A shackle, also known as a gyve, is a U-shaped piece of metal secured with a clevis pin or bolt across the opening, or a hinged metal loop secured with a quick-release locking pin mechanism. The term also applies to handcuffs and other similarly conceived restraint devices that function in a similar manner. Shackles are the primary connecting link in all manner of rigging systems, from boats and ships to industrial crane rigging, as they allow different rigging subsets to be connected or disconnected quickly. A shackle is also the similarly shaped piece of metal used with a locking mechanism in padlocks.
A carabiner is a variety of shackle used in mountaineering.
A shackle is a device used as a connecting link in rigging systems.
Shackle or Shackles may also refer to:
- Fetters, a type of restraint device
- " Shackles (Praise You)", a song by Mary Mary
- Shackles (film), a 2005 film
- As part of a land vehicle, a shackle is a link connecting a leaf spring to the frame
- A nautical unit used for measuring the lengths of the cables and chains (especially anchor chains), equal to 15 fathoms, 90 feet or 27.432 meters.
- Shackles or Shakles, the English translation title for the Indonesian novel Belenggu by Armijn Pane
Persons:
- G. L. S. Shackle, an English economist.
Usage examples of "shackle".
Having no shackle, he had to leave the bird blinkered, and the scarlet comb throbbed angrily.
The two ancient ladies, a Russian princess and the heiress to a rubber fortune, clients of the palazzo, have exited the elevator with them and wandered confusedly off into the night, somewhat shackled by their drawers, and now two soft splashes are heard at the far end of the Sotoportego del Capello where the gondolas dock at night.
Upside, enslaved here to the shackles of righteous employment, too tired to think straight, and Chyde is free as a bee down Southstairs, out of mortal company, light, and beauty.
He had been shackled during the trip he and Corbal had taken through space, or wherever, to reach this place.
He freed a fundamental process in cryptography from the shackles of time and error.
Conjurer was triple cuffed and double shackled, two officers pulled the man into a sitting position on the floor.
She sent a dreamlet, representing herself in woman form, in shackles, her side bleeding from abrasions, and with a brass bar in her mouth.
She then expatiated with equal success upon the consequences of indulged superstition, and the indispensable necessity of endeavouring to liberate the mind from the shackles of vulgar prejudices, which, she concluded with remarking, was considered by the discerning as the irrefragable testimony of an exalted mind.
He wears the Aristotelian cosmology like a shackle, clings to it like a wet-nurse, feeds upon its milk of false assumptions, and postulates the most unlikely machinery of epicycle, deferent, and equant.
In any case our immediate problem is a result of the diabolical ingenuity Edgars has displayed in shackling George in that manner.
How long had they been captives, heeding the call of the whip, the binding of shackles?
The forcefield flickered and died, but Dionysos remained shackled in leg irons and wrist irons.
In speaking so fiercely it was Levet he had in mind, who, following a dusky courtship in a coal-hole in Fetter Lane, had shackled himself to a woman later arrested for the picking of pockets.
And in the middle of it all Roger Lockless calmly went about his work, shifting down the line, one man at a time, opening shackles and bidding the men to stay calm until all were free.
If to throw off the shackles of Old World pedantry, and defy the paltry rules and examples of grammarians and rhetoricians, is the special province and the chartered privilege of the American writer, Timothy Dexter is the founder of a new school, which tramples under foot the conventionalities that hampered and subjugated the faculties of the poets, the dramatists, the historians, essayists, story-tellers, orators, of the worn-out races which have preceded the great American people.