Definition of "straitjacket" []

• A long-sleeved jacketlike garment used to bind the arms tightly against the body as a means of restraining a violent patient or prisoner. (noun)
• Something that restricts, hinders, or confines: the straitjacket of bureaucratic paperwork. (noun)
• To restrain, restrict, or hinder by or as if by confining in a straitjacket. (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.

• "He would come into a big city and hang himself upside down in a straitjacket from a skyscraper - but not just any building, usually the one that housed the major newspaper."
• "Too often, I fear, the straitjacket is what ends up coming across from the opera stage."
• "I mean, it's the best kind of long-term straitjacket."