constrained, ppl. a.
(kənˈstreɪnd)
[f. constrain v. + -ed.]
1. Of persons: Forced, acting under compulsion. Of actions, etc.: Brought about by compulsion.
| 1597 Daniel Civ. Wares iv. xxxix, This weake constrayned company. 1605 Shakes. Macb. v. iv. 13 None serue with him, but constrained things, Whose hearts are absent too. 1780 Cowper Table Talk 623 The mind, released from too constrained a nerve. 1871 Freeman Norm. Conq. (1876) IV. xx. 577 The breaking of a constrained oath. |
2. Forced, as opposed to natural.
| 1571 Golding Calvin on Ps. xxxv. 20 Bothe theis seeme unto mee to alledge constreyned senses. 1597 Morley Introd. Mus. 7 Vnder Gam vt the voice seemed as a kinde of humming, and aboue E la a kinde of constrained skricking. 1693 Dryden Ess. on Satire Wks. 1821 XIII. 21 [Milton's] ‘Juvenilia’, where his rhyme is always constrained and forced, and comes hardly from him. 1763 Scrafton Indostan iii. (1770) 104 The Soubah..received him with a constrained graciousness. 1841 Elphinstone Hist. Ind. I. 35 The constrained hospitality with which they are directed to prepare food..for a military man coming as a guest. |
3. Of persons: Behaving under constraint, having the spontaneous and natural impulses checked, embarrassed.
| 1802 M. Edgeworth Moral T. (1816) I. i. 3 Notwithstanding all his efforts to be and to appear at ease, he was constrained and abashed. |
4. Forcibly or unnaturally confined (physically), cramped.
| 1768 W. Gilpin Ess. Prints 28 Every constrained posture [should be] avoided. 1842 Penny Cycl. XXII. 128/2 When very weary, we sleep even in the most constrained positions. Mod. Tight dresses mean constrained limbs. |
5. Dynamics. Forced to move in a certain course.
| 1856 Tait & Steele Dynamics of Particle (1871) 386 A single particle subject to the action of any forces, and whose motion is either free, constrained, or resisted. |