straitjacket

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun anything immaterial that severely hinders or confines
noun a garment similar to a jacket that is used to bind the arms tightly against the body as a means of restraining a violent person

From strait (“restrictive”) + jacket.

I always thought him sane enough until today, but you can take it from me that either he or I ought to be in a straitjacket. — The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
The events above narrated had driven him into a state of desperation at what he felt to be gross injustice, and he carried on in such a way that the doctor ordered his head to be shaved and blistered as a punishment, the straitjacket and all other coercive measures having been of no avail. — Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in Solitude, Austin Bidwell
Unable to move or speak he must remain in his physical straitjacket while this tigerish woman was doing him to death, at her leisure, with the invisible knife-thrusts of a great and consuming hatred It was unbearable, and I entered the room with the merest apology for a knock; instantly the eyes of the basilisk were veiled. — In Jeopardy, Van Tassel Sutphen

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