untrammeled









untrammeled


noun

  1. Usually trammels. a hindrance or impediment to free action; restraint: the trammels of custom.
  2. an instrument for drawing ellipses.
  3. Also called tram. a device used to align or adjust parts of a machine.
  4. trammel net.
  5. a fowling net.
  6. a contrivance hung in a fireplace to support pots or kettles over the fire.
  7. a fetter or shackle, especially one used in training a horse to amble.

verb (used with object), tram·meled, tram·mel·ing or (especially British) tram·melled, tram·mel·ling.

  1. to involve or hold in trammels; restrain.
  2. to catch or entangle in or as in a net.

noun

  1. (often plural) a hindrance to free action or movement
  2. Also called: trammel net a fishing net in three sections, the two outer nets having a large mesh and the middle one a fine mesh
  3. rare a fowling net
  4. US a fetter or shackle, esp one used in teaching a horse to amble
  5. a device for drawing ellipses consisting of a flat sheet of metal, plastic, or wood having a cruciform slot in which run two pegs attached to a beam. The free end of the beam describes an ellipse
  6. (sometimes plural) another name for beam compass
  7. Also called: tram a gauge for setting up machines correctly
  8. a device set in a fireplace to support cooking pots

verb -els, -elling or -elled or US -els, -eling or -eled (tr)

  1. to hinder or restrain
  2. to catch or ensnare
  3. to produce an accurate setting of (a machine adjustment), as with a trammel

adj.also untrammelled, 1795, from un- (1) “not” + past participle of trammel. n.mid-14c. (implied in trammeller) “net to catch fish,” from Middle French tramail, from Old French (early 13c.), from Late Latin tremaculum, perhaps meaning “a net made from three layers of meshes,” from Latin tri- “three” + macula “a mesh” (see mail (2)). Italian tramaglio, Spanish trasmallo are French loan-words. v.1530s, originally “to bind up (a corpse);” sense of “hinder, restrain” is from 1727, from trammel (n.). Related: Trammeled; trammeling.

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