bound hand and foot
- idiom
- Informal
:
atado de pies y manos
- They were between political realism, bound hand and foot by a conventional wisdom out of touch with events, and the reality of those events, which we might call circumstantial reality.
Examples
-
11:44 He that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes; and his face was bound about with a napkin.
Blog text (4) -
Likewise, the Romans tossed straw puppets bound hand and foot into the Tiber.
-
The detective lies naked, bound hand and foot.
Fiction book (1996) -
She sees Violet on the bed, also bound hand and foot.
Fiction book (1996) -
Stanley lies in the back seat, gagged, bound hand and foot, and half hidden under a blanket.
Fiction book (1994) -
She talks of children, bound hand and foot to the slab, and dark sacrificial fires, and I find myself starting to cry.
Fiction book (1995) -
Wang pictured himself being stuffed into the trunk of the Ox Twis car, carried off into the mountains, and buried alive, still bound hand and foot.
Fiction book (1996) -
Kneeling to speak with them in that miserable position, Dante is reminded of the similar fate of convicted assassins in his native Florence, executed by being bound hand and foot and buried alive head-down in a hole.
Fiction book (1994) -
After being kidnapped, he was found bound hand and foot in an abandoned warehouse.
-
The magician's assistant was cleverly bound hand and foot during the escape act.
Synonyms
6
4.2
Tied or fastened to stop movement
Held with chains or by rules that stop you from acting
Held by chains or ties so someone cannot move and cannot act freely
Held by chains around the ankles so the person cannot move freely
Antonyms
How Restricted
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase literally combines 'bound' (tied) with 'hand' and 'foot', so the sense of being completely restrained or unable to act is directly derivable from the constituent meanings. This is a concrete, image-based composition and has close parallels in many languages, making it immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner who knows the parts.
Etymology
The idiom bound hand and foot comes from the image of a person with their hands and feet tied so they cannot move. So it means someone is 'completely restricted' or 'unable to act freely'.