▪ I. trammel, n.1
(ˈtræməl)
Forms: 5 tramale, -ell, -elle, (tramaly, 5–6 -ely), 5–6 tramayle, (6 Sc. tramalt), 6–7 tramell, 6–8 -el, 6–9 trammell, 7 tramaile, 6– trammel.
[In sense 1, a. OF. tramail (c 1220 in Godef. Compl.), mod.F. trémail a fishing- or fowling-net, with three layers of meshes, = It. tramaglio, Sp. trasmallo, Pg. trasmalho:—late pop.L. tramaculum for tri-, tremaculum (in Salic Law, Hessels, Cod. 1, xxvii. 20, tremaclem, v. rr. tremalem, tremagilo, tramaculam, trimaclem, tremagolum, tremachlum, etc.) a kind of fishing-net, generally explained as f. L. tri- three + macula mesh. In the Romanic langs. the prefix appears to have been taken as = tra-, L. trans. The history of the other senses here included is difficult: see Note below.]
I. 1. A long narrow fishing-net, set vertically with floats and sinkers; consisting of two ‘walls’ of large-meshed netting, between which is a net of fine mesh, loosely hung. More fully trammel-net.
The fish enters through the large mesh on one side, drives the fine netting through the large mesh on the other, and is thus trapped in a pocket or bag of the fine netting. Also sometimes applied to other kinds of fishing nets.
| 1363 [implied in trammeller 1]. |
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 499/1 Tramayle, grete nette for fyschynge (K. tramely, H., P. tramaly), tragum. 14.. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 617/18 Tramellum..quoddam genus retis,..a tramayle. 1467–8 Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees) 92 Pro j rethe voc. Tramale, xxiiij{supd}. 1558 Act 1 Eliz. c. 17 §3 No persone..shall fishe..with any maner of Nett, Tramell [etc.], but onely with a Nett or Tramell whereof every Meshe..shalbee [etc.]. 1633 P. Fletcher Pisc. Ecl. v. xiv, Are thy lines broke? or are thy trammels tore? 1787 Best Angling (ed. 2) 5 By fishing with trammels or flews in March or April. 1848 C. A. Johns Week at Lizard 242 The trammel is a long net, about five feet deep, with a double mesh, one large enough to allow the fish to pass through, the other much smaller. 1883 E. P. Ramsay Food Fishes N.S. Wales 33 (Fish. Exhib. Publ.) They are usually taken for market with a Trammel, or Bag-net, set across the stream, or by hook and line. |
b. A fowling-net; = trammel-net b.
| 1530 Palsgr. 282/2 Tramell to catche fysshe or byrdes, trameau. 1581 Act 23 Eliz. c. 10 §6 To take any Partridges or Feasaunts by night, under any Tramell, Lowbell, Roade⁓nette or other Engine. 1655 Moufet & Bennet Health's Impr. (1746) 173 A Partridge taken in Flight, or a Lark dared with a Hawk, is worth ten taken with Nets, Springs and Trammels. 1895 Quiller Couch Wand. Heath 80 He and his mates went out and tilled the trammel. |
II. † 2. A hobble to prevent a horse from straying or kicking; also, a contrivance for teaching a horse to amble, consisting of lines and straps connecting the fore and hind feet on each side, with a strap over the back to which both lines were fastened for support. Obs.
| c 1550 W. Keth Tye the Mare, Tom Boy 35 (Ritson) Yett wer thou much better In trammells to bynd her; A loock and a fetter Befor and behynd her. 1591 Greene Art Conny Catch. ii. (1592) 4 Whether they haue horse-locks or no,..in the night they take him or them away, and are skilfull in the blacke Art, for picking open the tramels or lockes. 1616 Surfl. & Markh. Country Farme 133 It is called a Tramell when a Horses neere fore-legge and his neere hinder-legge..are so fastened together with leathers and cords, that he cannot put forward his fore-legge, but he must perforce hale his hinder-legge after it. 1675 Lond. Gaz. No. 1043/4 A..Nag..has all his paces, and swellings in his forelegs caused by the tramels. 1766 Compl. Farmer, Tramel,..made sometimes of leather, but more usually of ropes, fitted to a horse's legs to regulate his motion, and teach him to amble. |
3. transf. and fig. Anything that hinders or impedes free action; anything that confines, restrains, fetters, or shackles. Chiefly pl.
| a 1653 G. Daniel Idyll. iii. 106 'Tis an easie Chord; ye Flax of Law Makes a soft Trammell. a 1680 Butler Rem. (1759) I. 266 To put his Wits into a kind of Tramels. 1709 Steele & Swift Tatler No. 74 ¶4 The Gentleman is in the true Trammels of Love. 1787 F. Burney Diary 5 Jan., There seemed to be no opportunity..of liberating my evenings from official trammels. 1841 D'Israeli Amen. Lit. (1867) 462 The destiny of Spenser was..to wear the silken trammels of noble patrons. 1889 John Bull 2 Mar. 148/3 Throughout her career she [Geo. Eliot], for the most part, refused to bind herself by conventional trammels. |
4. Mech. An instrument for describing ellipses (F. compas à ellipse), consisting of a cross with two grooves at right angles, in which slide pins carrying a beam or ruler with a pencil; also applied to the beam-compass (beam n.1 IV). Also pl.
So called because the motion of the beam carrying the pencil is trammelled or confined by the restriction of the pins to the grooves.
| 1725 W. Halfpenny Sound Building 7 Make the Tramel..in the same Form as..in the Figure. 1780 Ludlam in Phil. Trans. LXX. 378 The instrument for drawing ovals upon paper or board..is much in use among the joiners, and called by them the trammels. 1795 Hutton Math. Dict. s.v., All the engines for turning ovals are constructed on the same principles with the Trammels: the only difference is, that in the Trammels the board is at rest, and the pencil moves upon it. 1875 Carpentry & Join. 118 We will now add one other method of striking elliptic curves, and describe..the instrument by which it is done. This is called a trammel. 1884 Cheshire Gloss. s.v., In working circular work, a staff of the radius of the circle is a trammel. |
III. 5. A series of rings or links, or other device, to bear a crook at different heights over the fire; the whole being suspended from a transverse bar (the crook-tree), built in the chimney, or from a small crane or gallows, the vertical member of which turns in sockets in the jamb and lintel. Now local Eng. and U.S.
| 1537 Bury Wills (Camden) 130 The tramely yn the chemney, and the racke on the soler. 1630 Maldon, Essex, Documents Bundle 217. No. 22 In the little butterye, i iron hooke to hange at the eand of a tramell, 2d. 1674 Ray S. & E.C. Words 77 A Trammel, an iron instrument hanging in the chimney, whereon to hang pots or kettles over the fire. 1866 Whittier Snowbound 136 The crane and pendent trammels showed. 1883 Hampshire Gloss., Trammel, a hook to hang a boiler on. [An error.] 1889 L. Larcom New Eng. Girlhood i. 22 We..sometimes smirched our clean aprons..against the swinging crane with its sooty pot-hooks and trammels. |
IV. † 6. pl. The plaits, braids, or tresses of a woman's hair; in quot. 1594 with play on sense 1.
(Sometimes erroneously explained as a net to confine the hair.)
| 1589 Greene Menaphon (Arb.) 25 She..wraps affection in the tramels of her haire. 1590 Spenser F.Q. ii. ii. 15 Her golden lockes she roundly did uptye In breaded tramels. Ibid. iii. ix. 20 Her golden locks, that were in trammells gay Upbounden, did them selves adowne display And raught unto her heeles. 1594 Greene & Lodge Looking Glasse G.'s Wks. (Rtldg.) 122/2 For women's locks are trammels of conceit, Which do entangle Love for all his wiles. 1669 A. Browne Ars Pict. 86 You may go over the hair, disposing into such forms, folds or tramels, as may become your Picture best. 1673 Jordan Lond. in Splend. 12 A long fair Hair, the tramels tyed with small Ribon of all the light Colours. |
V. 7. attrib. and Comb., as † trammel-boat (? used in fishing with the trammel-net); trammel-trick [f. trammel v.]; trammel-wheel, a mechanical device for converting rotary into reciprocal motion, consisting of a wheel with grooves crossing each other, in which slide projections attached to a connecting-rod, so that the rod makes two up-and-down motions for each revolution of the wheel; also a modification of this.
| 1614 T. Gentleman Way to Wealth (1660) 9 The Pinks for barreld Fish, and Trammel boats. 1873 Browning Red Cotton Night-Cap Country 176 Be theirs to drowse Trammeled, and ours to watch the trammel-trick! 1877 Knight Dict. Mech., Trammel-wheel. |
[Note. French dictionaries have trémail, tramail, only in senses 1, 1 b. And indeed the sense-connexion of branches II, III, IV with I, and with each other, is obscure; some of them may perhaps be different words. But the identification of I and II is not confined to English. Du Cange quotes a med.L. statute of Piacenza, in which tramaiolum (? read tramacolum) is applied to a stick a cubit and a half long, ordered to be fixed to the necks of dogs to prevent them from running into vineyards or other places where they might do mischief; and he identifies this word with It. tramaglio and F. tramail, and refers to this word as known to be applied not only to a net, but to any kind of shackle or snare (pedica). Baretti's Ital. dictionary has tramaglio only as ‘a trammel or drag-net’, but Florio 1611 has it ‘a tramell or ensnaring’.]
▪ II. † trammel, n.2 Obs.
In 5 tramel, -ale, -aly.
[Cf. OF. tremuie, tremue, tremee (all 14th c. in Godef.), trameul, tremouille, tremuë (Cotgr.), mod.F. trémie = Pr. tremueia, Cat. tramuja, It. tramoggia, Sicil. trimoja:—L. trimodia, a three-peck measure: see Diez, Scheler. Some med.L. and Romanic forms are affected by L. trem-ĕre to tremble. In Eng. apparently confounded with trammel n.1]
The hopper of a mill.
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 246/1 Hopur, of a mylle, or a tramale (S. tramel, a 1485), taratantara, farricapsium. Ibid. 499/1 Tramaly, of a mylle, idem quod hopur; supra; et faricapsia. |
▪ III. ˈtrammel, v.
[f. trammel n.1]
† 1. trans. To bind up (a corpse). Obs.
| 1536 in Archæol. XVI. 23 (Funeral Q. Kath.) The Corps must be sered, tramayled, leded, and chested. 1546–7 in Strype Eccl. Mem. (1721) II. App. A. 3 (Funeral K. Hen. VIII) Surely bound and trammel'd with cords of silk. c 1558 Leland's Collect. (1770) V. 308 Whoo [Q. Mary] after her Departuer was..cered, and tramelled in this Manner. |
2. intr. To use a trammel-net; trans. to take (fish or birds) with a trammel-net.
| 1588–1866 [see trammelling vbl. n.]. 1846 Bell's Life 9 Aug. 7/5 Four men were caught trammelling pheasants. |
† 3. trans. To fasten together (the legs of a horse) with trammels (trammel n.1 2); also, to put trammels on (a horse). Obs.
| 1607 Markham Caval. iv. ix. (1617) 45, I would haue you in any case..to tramell your horse aboue knee. 1610 ― Masterp. ii. clix. 468 After you haue tramelled all his foure legges. 1639 T. de la Grey Compl. Horsem. 307 Tramell his fore-feet that he do not lye down. |
4. fig. To entangle or fasten up as in a trammel.
| 1605 Shakes. Macb. i. vii. 3 If th'Assassination Could trammell vp the Consequence, and catch..Successe. 1819 Keats Lamia ii. 52 How to entangle, trammel up, and snare Your soul in mine. 1906 Hibbert Jrnl. Jan. 304 Mind is never either mere antecedent or mere consequent. It trammels up its before and hereafter. |
5. fig. To hinder the free action of; to put restraint upon, fetter, hamper, impede, confine.
| 1727 Pope Let. to Gay 6 Oct., Ill and vicious Habits, of which few or no men escape the infection, who are hackney'd and tramelled in the ways of a court. 1792 A. Young Trav. France 236 We are little better than horses in a team, trammelled to follow one another. 1807 E. S. Barrett Rising Sun II. 8 Till he had trammelled himself again with debts. 1865 Swinburne Atalanta 98 Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot. 1883 Ld. R. Gower My Remin. I. i. 12 Like many great artists, when trammelled with a commission he seemed to lose power. |
6. To fasten (a piece of work on the spindle of a lathe) with a clamp. rare.
| 1833 J. Holland Manuf. Metal II. vi. 134 The work must be trammelled to the nose of the spindle, by a contrivance called the dog and driver, the former being a sort of clutch, screwed upon the end of the work. |