fetter

From Middle English feter, from Old English feter, Proto-West Germanic *fetur, from Proto-Germanic *feturaz (“fetter”), from Proto-Indo-European *ped- (“to step, walk; to fall, stumble”). Related to foot.

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

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛtə(ɹ)

fetter (plural fetters)

1. (usually plural) A chain or similar object used to bind a person or animal, often by its legs.

   Synonym: leg irons

2. (figurative) Anything that restricts or restrains.
   • 1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe‎^[1], Prologue:

     Passion's too fierce to be in fetters bound.

   • 1818, Mary Shelley, chapter 6, in Frankenstein‎^[2], archived from the original on 8 May 2013:

     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^[3], 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 …

(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, 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

• IPA^(key): [ˈfɛtɐ]

• Audio (Germany (Berlin)):

  (file)

• Homophone: Vetter

fetter

1. comparative degree of fett
2. inflection of fett:
   1. strong/mixed nominative masculine singular
   2. strong genitive/dative feminine singular
   3. strong genitive plural

From Middle Low German vedder.

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

1. a cousin (male)

• kusine

• “fetter” in Det Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).
• “fetter” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

From Middle Low German vedder.

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

1. a male cousin

• kusine f (“female cousin”)

• “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)