strait waistcoatn.

a. A garment for the upper part of the body, made of strong material and admitting of being tightly laced, used for the restraint of violent lunatics or prisoners, and sometimes as a means of punishment. There are various forms of this appliance; in some there are long sleeves with no opening, which can be tied together at the back; in others the arms are covered by the body of the garment.

ΘΚΠ

society > authority > subjection > restraint or restraining > restraint depriving of liberty > binding or fettering > [noun] > bond(s) or fetter(s) or shackle(s) > straitjacket

strait waistcoat1753

strait jacket1814

jacket1853

jumper1894

1753 S. Richardson Hist. Sir Charles Grandison III. vii. 57 She threatened her then with the Strait Waistcoat, a punishment at which the unhappy Lady was always greatly terrified.

1773 S. Crisp Let. in F. Burney Early Diary (1889) I. 261 I shall..have a strait waistcoat immediately put on him, debar him the use of pen, ink, and paper [etc.].

1837 T. Carlyle French Revol. III. iii. viii. 214 Within year and day we hear of her in madhouse and straitwaistcoat.

1881 W. Besant & J. Rice Chaplain of Fleet II. xviii. 77 They had put the strait-waistcoat over him, which pinned his arms to his sides.

b. figurative.

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1824 Countess Granville Let. 23 June (1894) I. 304 I put a strait-waistcoat upon my thoughts as the only way of keeping them within bounds.

1851 J. Ruskin Stones of Venice I. i. 22 The English Gothic was confined, in its insanity, by a strait-waistcoat of perpendicular lines.

2. attributive.

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1837 T. Carlyle French Revol. II. i. ii. 22 Neither indeed is there madness, of the strait-waistcoat sort.

1891 C. T. C. James Romantic Rigmarole 159 Assuming as jaunty..a step as the strait-waistcoat tightness of my riding costume permitted.

Derivatives

strait-ˈwaistcoat v. (transitive) to confine in a strait waistcoat.

ΘΚΠ

society > authority > subjection > restraint or restraining > restraint depriving of liberty > binding or fettering > bind, fetter, or shackle [verb (transitive)] > in a straitjacket

jacket1792

strait jacket1814

strait-waistcoat1837

1837 C. Dickens Pickwick Papers xxxviii. 419 Ve thought ve should ha' been obliged to strait-veskit him last night.

1859 G. A. Sala Twice round Clock (1861) 213 Till their own troublesome bodies..are securely shackled and strait-waistcoated up, and carted away in police-vans to deep-holded ships.

strait-ˈwaistcoating n.

ΘΚΠ

the world > action or operation > difficulty > hindrance > restriction of free action > [noun]

locking1503

coarctinga1513

constraint1590

stint1593

coarctation1605

manacling1649

strait-waistcoating1859

hemming-in1905

strait-jacketing1950

society > authority > subjection > restraint or restraining > restriction or limitation > [noun] > of free action