shackle
57
7.1
- noun
- /ˈʃækəl/
:
grillete
- One of the photographs in the box is of the shackle Brown excavated in the quarters.
- break the shackles
- bound in shackles
- shake off shackles
It's not like he's in shackles or anything like that.
- It's not like he's in shackles or anything like that.
- It takes the same toll on the breath, the pulse, as the rusted shackles displayed in another damned museum.
- And I escaped out of my own shackles and also went with the trends of the world.
Examples
-
Come on, let's get you out of those shackles.
-
To free his students from the shackles of the limitations of their beliefs.
-
There is a chain running from the shackle to the palace wall.
Fiction book (1999) -
Heavy shackles used to hold me down.
-
And the shackles were off.
-
The only way out is to free your hand and ankle from the shackles.
-
I told you I'd seen him in shackles and handcuffs.
Fiction book (1993) -
Yet somehow he had loosened himself from his shackles and escaped his captors.
Academic text (2018) -
Varina writes of her distress at her husband's being held in shackles and fed rations.
Fiction book (2002) -
The museum exhibits several ancient shackles used to restrain prisoners in the past.
Synonyms
134
5.6
A metal band that locks around the wrist to stop a person from moving their hands
73
4.7
Something used to hold a person or animal still
14
3.2
A metal ring that locks around a wrist used by police to stop someone moving
5
8.6
A metal ring that locks around a wrist to stop someone moving
3
7.7
Metal cuffs that hold a prisoner's hands or legs together
1
9.9
A metal shackle that holds someone's hands or feet
A metal loop that fastens around each wrist to stop the hands moving
How Restrictive
Surface Forms
Etymology
Shackle comes from an old English word sceacel meaning 'metal cuffs' or 'fastening', and it was the name for the metal cuff or link used on wrists, ankles, or ropes. So a shackle today is still the heavy metal part that joins, holds, or stops movement.