fetter

From Old English feter, from Proto-Germanic *feturaz (“fetter”), from Proto-Indo-European *ped- (“foot, step”). Cognate with Dutch veter (“lace”). Doublet of foot.

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈfet.ə/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfɛt.ə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈfɛt.ɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛtə(r)

fetter (plural fetters)

1. A chain or similar object used to bind a person or animal – often by its legs (usually in plural).
2. (figuratively) Anything that restricts or restrains.
   • 1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe‎, Prologue:

     Passion's too fierce to be in fetters bound.

   • 1818, Mary Shelley, chapter 6, in Frankenstein‎:

     He looks upon study as an odious fetter; his time is spent in the open air, climbing the hills or rowing on the lake.

   • 1910, Erwin Rosen, “Prolog”, in In the Foreign Legion‎, HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2012:

     That was the turning-point of my life. I broke my fetters, and I fought a hard fight for a new career …

(chains on legs):

• leg irons

(chain binding generally):

• handcuff, handcuffs
• leg irons
• manacle, manacles
• shackle, shackles

fetter (third-person singular simple present fetters, present participle fettering, simple past and past participle fettered)

1. (transitive) To shackle or bind up with fetters.
   • 1788 June, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, “Mr. Sheridan’s Speech, on Summing Up the Evidence on the Second, or Begum Charge against Warren Hastings, Esq., Delivered before the High Court of Parliament, June 1788”, in Select Speeches, Forensick and Parliamentary, with Prefatory Remarks by N[athaniel] Chapman, M.D., volume I, [Philadelphia, Pa.]: Published by Hopkins and Earle, no. 170, Market Street, published 1808, OCLC 230944105, page 474:

     The Begums' ministers, on the contrary, to extort from them the disclosure of the place which concealed the treasures, were, […] after being fettered and imprisoned, led out on to a scaffold, and this array of terrours proving unavailing, the meek tempered Middleton, as a dernier resort, menaced them with a confinement in the fortress of Chunargar. Thus, my lords, was a British garrison made the climax of cruelties!

2. (transitive) To restrain or impede; to hamper.

• handcuff
• manacle
• shackle

• unfetter

• IPA^(key): [ˈfɛtɐ]
• Homophone: Vetter

fetter

1. strong masculine singular nominative form of fett.
2. strong feminine singular genitive form of fett.
3. strong feminine singular dative form of fett.
4. strong plural genitive form of fett.
5. mixed masculine singular nominative form of fett.
6. predicative comparative form of fett.

From Middle Low German vedder

fetter m (definite singular fetteren, indefinite plural fettere, definite plural fetterne)

1. a cousin (male)

• kusine

• “fetter” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

From Middle Low German vedder

fetter m (definite singular fetteren, indefinite plural fetrar, definite plural fetrane)

1. a cousin (male)

• kusine

• “fetter” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

fetter

1. indefinite plural of fett

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: fet‧ter

fetter m (plural fettyn)

1. paternal uncle (brother of someone’s father)