trammel

Meanings

Noun

• Whatever impedes activity, progress, or freedom, such as a net or shackle.
• 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.
• 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.
• A kind of shackle used for regulating the motions of a horse and making it amble.
• 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.

Verb

• To entangle, as in a net.
• To confine; to hamper; to shackle.

Origin

• From Middle English trameyle, from Old French tramail ("net for catching fish"), from Late Latin tremaculum.