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constraint

UK/kənˈstɹeɪnt/US/kənˈstɹeɪnt/
nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,668 of 15,258mostly written

Other forms: constraints

A constraint is a limit that stops you doing as you wish. Budget constraints, work under constraint, the main constraint is time.

In engineering and planning it is a neutral word for any fixed condition a solution must satisfy. Of a person, constraint means a stiff and unrelaxed manner, which is the older sense of being bound.

Definitions of constraint

  1. 1nounconstraintA limit that stops you doing as you wish.C1

    “The only real constraint on the design was the width of the door.”

constraint is a limit.

Where it comes from

Old French constreinte comes from Latin constringere, to bind tightly, from com plus stringere, to draw tight.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *streyg-

  2. Latin

    cōnstringō

  3. Old French

    constreinte

  4. Middle English

    constreynt

  5. English, today

    constraint

Built from

  • constreindre · Old French — to constrain

From Middle English constreynt, constreynte, from Old French constreinte, past participle of constreindre (“to constrain”), from Latin cōnstringō (corresponding to the past participle cōnstrictus).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

constraint in the wild

  • In addition to constraints, users also need to specify a method to solve these constraints.

    Constraint programming

  • Constraint programming takes its root from and can be expressed in the form of constraint logic programming, which embeds constraints into a logic program.

    Constraint programming

  • Constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) are mathematical questions defined as a set of objects whose state must satisfy a number of constraints or limitations.

    Constraint satisfaction problem

  • CSPs represent the entities in a problem as a homogeneous collection of finite constraints over variables, which is solved by constraint satisfaction methods.

    Constraint satisfaction problem

  • In consumer theory, the budget constraint and a preference map (or system of indifference curves) are the basic tools used to analyse consumer choice.

    Budget constraint

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.