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One who, or that which, limits or restrains.

To hold back by force; to restrain; to repress. My sire in caves constrains the winds. Dryden.

Capable of being constrained; liable to constraint, or to restraint. Hooker.

The act of constraining, or the state of being constrained; that which compels to, or restrains from, action; compulsion; restraint; necessity. Long imprisonment and hard constraint. Spenser. Not by constraint, but bDryden.

To put constraint upon; to restrain; to confine; to keep within bounds. [Obs., exept as used reflexively.] The king's person contains the unruly people from evil occasions. Spenser. Fear not, my lord: we can contain ourselves. Shak.

Self-restraint; self-command. He knew what to say; he knew also, when to leave off, -- a continence which is practiced by few writers. Dryden.

Serving to restrain or limit; restraining; opposing. [Obs.] Shak.

That which serves to check, restrain, or hinder; restraint. "Speak without control." Dryden.

Capable of being controlled, checked, or restrained; amenable to command. Passion is the drunkeness of the mind, and, therefore, . . . not always controllable by reason. South.

One who, or that which, controls or restraines; one who has power or authority to regulate or control; one who governs. The great controller of our fate Deigned to be man, and lived in low estate. Dryden.

The power or act of controlling; the state of being rstrained; control; restraint; regulation; superintendence. You may do it without controlment. Shak.

Any force or device designed to restrain another restraining force; a check upon a check. The system of checks and counterchecks. J. H. Newton.

A swaying in a contrary direction; an opposing influence. [Obs.] A countersway of restraint, curbing their wild exorbitance. Milton.

That which confines or contracts; a restraint; a shakle; a hindrance. A narrow fortune is a cramp to a great mind. L'Estrange. Crippling his pleasures with the cramp of fear. Cowper.

consecutive periods cellular confinement, associated imprisonment under the mark system, restraint intermediate between imprisonment and freedom, and liberation on ticket of leave.

to condemn. Men of dissolute lives cry down religion, because they would not be under the restraints of it. Tillotson. -- To cry out, to proclaim; to shout."Your gesture cries it out." Shak. -- To cry quits, to propose, or declare, the abandonment of a contest. -- To cry up, to enhance the value or reputation of by p…

To guide and manage, or restrain, as with a curb; to bend to one's will; to subject; to subdue; to restrain; to confine; to keep in check. Part wield their arms, part curb the foaming steed. Milton. Where pinching want must curbthy warm desires. Prior.

Having no curb or restraint.

State of being guarded and watched to prevent escape; restraint of liberty; confinement; imprisonment. What pease will be given To us enslaved, but custody severe, And stripes and arbitrary punishment Milton.

To obstruct or restrain the flow of, by a dam; to confine by constructing a dam, as a stream of water; -- generally used with in or up. I'll have the current in this place dammed up. Shak. A weight of earth that dams in the water. Mortimer.