fetterlock
(ˈfɛtəlɒk)
Also 5 feter-, -ir-, -yr-, 6 fether-, 7 feawter-, fewter-.
[f. fetter n. + lock; in sense 1 a corruption of fetlock.]
1. = fetlock 1. Also used attrib.
| 1587 L. Mascall Govt. Cattle (1627) 135 They clippe away all the hayre sauing the fetherlocke. 1617 Markham Caval. ii. 9 His ioyntes beneath his knees great, with long feawter lockes. 1678 Lond. Gaz. No. 1338/4 A grey Mare..charm'd upon the 4 fetter-lock joints. 1688 R. Holme Armoury ii. 154/1 The Fewter-lock. 1716 Lond. Gaz. No. 5470/4 The Fetter-Locks behind bigger than the other. 1841 Catlin N. Amer. Ind. (1844) II. xlv. 85 Our horses' feet were sinking at every step above their fetterlocks. |
b. transf. of a human being.
| 1664 Butler Hud. ii. i. 91 To set at large his Fetter-locks. |
2. An apparatus fixed to the foot of a horse, to prevent his running away.
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 159/1 Fetyrlokke, sera compeditalis. 1530 Palsgr. 220/1 Fetterlocke, serrure a goujons. 1610 Holland Camden's Brit. i. 510 The forme of the Keepe..built like a fetter-lock. |
| fig. 1841 James Brigand xxi, Despotic suspicion had not invented the fetter-lock of passports. |
b. The same represented on a badge, shield, etc. Also a jewel of the same form.
It is figured as a cylinder to which a chain or steel band is attached in the form of a D, one end being permanently fixed and the other secured by a lock.
| 1463 Bury Wills (1850) 37 A litil fetirlok of gold with a lace of perle and smal bedys therto of blak. c 1465 Pol. Rel. & L. Poems (1866) 2 An F. for þe feterlock þat is of grete substance. 1605 Camden Rem. (1637) 346 King Edward..bare his white Rose, the fetterlocke before specified. 1646 Buck Rich. III, iv. 115 The device was, A Faulcon encompassed with a Fetter-lock. 1820 Scott Ivanhoe xxix, A fetterlock, and a shacklebolt on a field-sable. |