fettering

verb

present participle of fetter
1
as in binding
to confine or restrain with or as if with chains museum artifacts that serve as somber reminders of the days when slaves were fettered with irons

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in impeding
to create difficulty for the work or activity of the belief that too many rules and restrictions fetter children's creativity

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for fettering
  1. binding
  2. impeding
  3. tying
  4. hampering
  5. confining
  6. hindering
  7. constraining
  8. obstructing
Verb
  • Within days of Secretary McMahon’s letter, conservative policy networks published turn-key model state legislation designed to convert these federal guidelines into binding state law.
    — David Rosowsky, Forbes.com, 7 Aug. 2026
  • Advertisement Anthropic, estimated to have less compute than OpenAI, claims not to feel this as the binding limit.
    — Harry Booth, Time, 7 Aug. 2026
Definition of binding
Verb
  • Yachua Mauricio Flores, 23, of Lincoln Heights pleaded guilty in late April to one count of obstructing, impeding and interfering with law enforcement officers during civil disorder, the Department of Justice said in a news release.
    — Seamus Bozeman, Los Angeles Times, 4 Aug. 2026
  • Benedict had a prior arrest on a charge of assault on a family or household member by impeding breath or circulation in 2023 in Collin County.
    — Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 30 July 2026
Definition of impeding
Verb
  • Grantham’s own framing reaches for an even longer horizon, tying market excess to demographic collapse and resource scarcity.
    — Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, 4 Aug. 2026
  • Competitive Wordle Score The Bot and I each get 1 point for guessing in three and 0 for tying.
    — Erik Kain, Forbes.com, 3 Aug. 2026
Definition of tying
Verb
  • Delays connecting new power plants to the grid are hampering progress.
    — Laurent Belsie, Christian Science Monitor, 4 Aug. 2026
  • Toub said the only scenario in which a rookie wouldn’t participate in special teams is because of an injury — such as the shoulder issue that’s currently hampering the Chiefs’ first-round draft pick, cornerback Mansoor Delane.
    — Pete Sweeney, Kansas City Star, 1 Aug. 2026
Definition of hampering
Verb
  • Color, line, and texture all play important roles in making a small garden feel expansive and inviting or confining and cramped.
    — Megan Hughes, Better Homes & Gardens, 2 Aug. 2026
  • The dragging chains had worn away all soft earth and grass, confining the dogs to circles of hard dirt.
    — Moná Thomas, PEOPLE, 30 July 2026
Definition of confining
Verb
  • He was charged with hindering apprehension, obstruction of justice and tampering with evidence for allegedly helping Azzubair Outen-Fleming leave the area, according to the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office.
    — Joe Holden, CBS News, 10 Aug. 2026
  • Second, reactive homophily causes leaders to avoid diverse interactions due to fear, hindering genuine allyship.
    — Julie Kratz, Forbes.com, 9 Aug. 2026
Definition of hindering
Verb
  • In the post-Watergate, post-Vietnam era, this thinking went, Congress had gone too far in constraining the executive branch with presumptuous reforms that aimed to secure greater accountability and transparency from the White House.
    — Margaret Talbot, New Yorker, 10 Aug. 2026
  • Power grid limitations, construction labor shortages, and community opposition to data centers are already constraining that buildout.
    — Nili Gilbert, Forbes.com, 21 July 2026
Definition of constraining
Verb
  • Former Portage Mayor James Snyder wants a federal appeals court to dismiss his case stemming from his November 2016 indictment, which included a charge of obstructing the IRS.
    — Alexandra Kukulka, Chicago Tribune, 5 Aug. 2026
  • The New Jersey facility has repeatedly been accused by state and local inspectors of obstructing health and safety inspections and has been the site of ongoing protests and detainee hunger strikes over food quality, overcrowding and medical care.
    — Emma Bussey , Bill Melugin, FOXNews.com, 4 Aug. 2026
Definition of obstructing
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

fettered
fettering
fetters
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Fettering.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/fettering. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.

Copy Citation

More from Merriam-Webster on fettering

Nglish: Translation of fettering for Spanish Speakers

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

7 Pairs of Commonly Confused Words

Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of Words You Love to Hate

Is that lie 'bald-faced' or 'bold-faced'?

'A' or 'an'? What about before 'h'? An Indefinite Article Guide

Why is '-ed' sometimes pronounced at the end of a word?
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

The Longest Long Words List

It's a Scorcher! Words for the Summer Heat

14 Phobias You Probably Haven't Heard Of

The Words of the Week - Aug. 7

12 Lovely and Unusual Words for the Natural World
See More

Popular

See More

7 Pairs of Commonly Confused Words

The Longest Long Words List

It's a Scorcher! Words for the Summer Heat
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
fridge-magnet-letters
Drop a Letter Quiz August 2026 Drop a letter from a word to make a totally diffe...
See All