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restraint

UK/ɹɪˈstɹeɪnt/US/ɹɪˈstɹeɪnt/
nounC1Common in everyday speech and writing · #5,230 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: restraints

Restraint is self-control, or something that holds you back. Show restraint, exercise restraint, physical restraint.

In care and policing, restraint means holding a person physically, and it is tightly regulated because people have died under it — the rules exist for exactly that reason. In ordinary use it is praise for not doing what you might have.

Definitions of restraint

  1. 1nounrestraintSelf-control, or something that holds you back.C1

    “Despite the insults, the police officers showed great restraint.”

restraint is a holding back.

Where it comes from

Old French restreinte comes from restreindre, to hold back, from Latin restringere. Restrict is the same verb.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *streyg-

  2. Old French

    restreinte

  3. Middle English

    restreynte

  4. English, today

    restraint

From Middle English restreynte, from Old French restreinte; more at restrain.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

restraint in the wild

  • Negative liberty is primarily concerned with freedom from external restraint and contrasts with positive liberty (the possession of the power and resources to fulfill one's own potential).

    Negative liberty

  • Actual physical restraint is not necessary for false imprisonment to occur.

    False imprisonment

  • Prior restraint can be effected in a number of ways.

    Prior restraint

  • Judicial restraint is a judicial interpretation that recommends favoring the status quo in judicial activities and is the opposite of judicial activism.

    Judicial restraint

  • Judicial restraint may lead a court to decide in favor of the status quo.

    Judicial restraint

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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.