Definition of "fetter" []

• A chain or shackle for the ankles or feet. (noun)
• Something that serves to restrict; a restraint. (noun)
• To put fetters on; shackle. (verb-transitive)
• To restrict the freedom of. See Synonyms at hamper1. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "They are as stanch and resolved in their hatred of the domestic institution as when we abolished the accursed slave traffic; as when, at a vast sacrifice, both of money and of colonial prosperity, we struck the last fetter from the last English slave; as when the women of England, half a million strong, sent out a generous if not a wise remonstrance to the women of America."
• "Thursday (called in French Jeudi gras and in German fetter Donnerstag"
• "It never will save a man from sin; never break a fetter, or dash away a wine-cup."