hog-tie

hog-tie (third-person singular simple present hog-ties, present participle hog-tying, simple past and past participle hog-tied)

1. To tie an animal's or someone's feet together; originally all four legs of a quadruped.
   • 1920, Peter B. Kyne, chapter XII, in The Understanding Heart:

     # “As an inventor,” Bob Mason suggested, “you're a howling success at shooting craps ! If I were as free of spavins, ringbone, saddle-galls, and splints as you are, I'd have that nanny-goat in here, hog-tie her, flop her and let the boy help himself. […]”

2. (figuratively) To render helpless.

hog-tie (plural hog-ties)

1. The act of tying the feet together in this way.

• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967