Dictionary.com word of the day

[Gantry]

Word of the Day for Friday September 2, 2005

   trammel \TRAM-uhl\, noun:
   1. A kind of net for catching birds, fish, etc.
   2. A kind of shackle used for making a horse amble.
   3. Something that impedes activity, progress, or freedom, as a
   net or shackle.
   4.  An  iron hook of various forms and sizes, used for handing
   kettles and other vessels over the fire.
   5. An instrument for drawing ellipses.
   6. An instrument for aligning or adjusting parts of a machine.

   transitive verb:
   1. To entangle, as in a net; to enmesh.
   2. To hamper; to hinder the activity, progress, or freedom of.

     I  feel she dances a symbol of human happiness as it should
     be, free from unnatural trammels.
     --John  Sloan,  quoted in [1]New York Modern, by William B.
     Scott and Peter M. Rutkoff

     Is it a dull or uninstructive picture to see a whole people
     shaking  suddenly  off  the trammels of reason, and running
     wild after a golden vision, refusing obstinately to believe
     that  it  is  not  real,  till, like a deluded hind running
     after an ignis fatuus, they are plunged into a quagmire?
     --Charles   Mackay,  [2]Memoirs  of  Extraordinary  Popular
     Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

     In  fact,  corporate governance is based on the belief that
     managers  (like  anyone  else)  work  best  not  when their
     freedom is trammelled but when they are made to account for
     what they do with it.
     --"The way ahead," [3]The Economist, January 29, 1994

     It  is quite inconsistent to claim to promote an enterprise
     society  on the one hand and to trammel it with regulations
     on the other.
     --Sir  Iain  Vallance,  quoted in "Stop squeezing business,
     CBI,"  by  Charlotte  Denny and Michael White, [4]Guardian,
     May 22, 2002

     And  it  encourages  the coercive use of political power to
     wipe   out  choice,  forbid  experimentation,  shortcircuit
     feedback, and trammel progress.
     --Virginia Postrel, [5]The Future and Its Enemies
     _________________________________________________________

   Trammel   is   from   Old  French  tramail,  from  Late  Latin
   tremaculum,  a kind of net for catching fish, from Latin tres,
   "three" + macula, "a mesh."

References

   1. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0801867932/ref%3Dnosim/lexico
   2. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/051788433X/ref%3Dnosim/lexico
   3. http://www.economist.com/
   4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/
   5. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684862697/ref%3Dnosim/lexico

[BeefMaster]

JoeDirt will not appreciate that spelling.

[Gantry]

Well, if he gets a better word of the day he is free to it...

[RedBarron]

i have a word for joe dirt:   asshole

[fightonusc]

i have a three words for joe dirt: tickle my asshole

[BeeJay]

I prefer this spelling.

Tramell


and yes, I'm fully aware that isn't Sharon Stone.