restrain

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English restreinen, also spelled restrainen and restreignen,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman restreindre, also restraindre, from the stem of these verbs.^[4][5][2] Etymonline, the Shorter Oxford and Klein give the French verb as Old French,^[6][7][8] Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com as Middle French;^[9][10] it survives as restreindre.^[4][8] The French verb is from Latin restringō (“to draw back tightly, bind fast, confine, check”),^[4][6][3][5] formed from re- (“back”) and stringō (“to draw tight, bind”),^[11][8][12] the verb behind strain and stringent.^[9][12][8] The same Latin verb later gave English restrict directly,^[13][14] and the OED compares ristringere, restriñir and restringir.^[4] The noun restraint is restrainte, the feminine past participle of the French verb used as a noun.^[3][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

To restrict, limit or confine: before 1325, in the Statutes of the Realm.^[4] Barnhart's first record is before 1349, in the sense "hold back, keep in check, stop",^[3] and Etymonline dates the word to the mid-14th century, of curbing a vice, purpose, appetite or desire.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Anglo-Norman and Old French the verb was first physical: from the mid-12th century it meant to fasten armour, to grip or compress, and to bind or bandage, and about 1177 to control a horse with the reins; the senses "to check, control", "to limit" and "to arrest" followed.^[4] Anglo-Norman already used it for holding someone back from a course of action, restricting and apprehending.^[15] English took over the figurative senses: to limit (before 1325), to hold a person back from a course of action (1384), to keep a person or animal in check (before 1387), and to repress a desire or emotion (c. 1405, in Chaucer's Melibeus).^[4] Chaucer used the verb 25 times and Gower 22 times.^[16] The sense of depriving a person of liberty is recorded from 1397, and that of confining or imprisoning from 1491, when it could also mean to embargo a ship;^[4] Etymonline dates "deprive of liberty by restraint" to the 1520s.^[6] Johnson (1755) defined it first as "to withhold; to keep in" and then as "to repress; to keep in awe".^[17] A noun restrain, meaning restraint, was used from about 1449, often in without restrain.^[4]

Timeline

• before 1325 – to restrict, limit or confine.^[4]
• before 1349 – to hold back, keep in check.^[3]
• 1384 – to hold back a person from a course of action.^[4]
• before 1387 – to keep a person or animal under control, often reflexive.^[4]
• before 1393 – to check a natural force; to withhold something from someone.^[4]
• 1397 – to deprive of liberty or rights.^[4]
• c. 1405 – to repress a desire or emotion.^[4]
• c. 1449 – noun restrain, restraint.^[4]
• 1491 – to confine or imprison; in legal use, to prohibit an action.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To hold someone back from an action, especially by force: Two stewards restrained the angry fan.^[12][9][4]
2. To limit or restrict; to keep within bounds or under control: The new rules restrain spending by local councils.^[12][9][4]
3. To deprive someone of liberty, as by imprisonment, or to restrict their movement physically.^[12][4]
4. To check or repress a feeling or desire: She restrained her laughter.^[4][9]
5. (rare) To withhold or keep back something from someone.^[4][17]

Word family

• restrainable
• restrainer
• restrainability
• restrainingly
• overrestrain

Related words

• constrain
• restraint
• restrict
• strain
• stringent
• constraint
• strict

Usage notes

Etymonline quotes the Century Dictionary's distinction: what we restrain we keep within limits, what we restrict we keep within definite limits, and what we repress we try to put out of existence.^[6] Weekley notes that the phrase restraint of princes was still used in marine insurance for an embargo.^[13]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
16. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
17. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.