Other forms: restricted, restricting, restricts
To restrict is to keep something within set limits. Restrict access, restrict the flow, severely restricted.
It means setting a boundary rather than forbidding outright, which is the difference from ban — a restricted road has a speed limit and a banned one has no traffic. Restricted also means classified, at a specific level. Note restriction; and that the Latin means drawn back tightly, from stringere, which also gives strict, stringent and strain.
1verbrestrictTo keep something within set limits.
“The new law restricts the sale of alcohol after ten at night.”
2adjectiveclassifiedClassified, at a specific level.
“Only senior officers may read the files marked 'restricted'.”
restrict is a limiting.
Latin restringere is re- plus stringere, to draw tight. Strict, stringent, strain and constrain come from the same tightening.
Proto-Indo-European
*streyg-
Latin
restrictus
English, today
restrict
Built from
Latin restrictus, perfect passive participle of restringō (“draw back tightly; restrain, restrict”), from re- (“back, again”) + stringō (“press, tighten, compress”). a doublet of ristretto as an adjective.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA