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Shackle   Listen
noun
Shackle  n.  
1.
Something which confines the legs or arms so as to prevent their free motion; specifically, a ring or band inclosing the ankle or wrist, and fastened to a similar shackle on the other leg or arm, or to something else, by a chain or a strap; a gyve; a fetter. "His shackles empty left; himself escaped clean."
2.
Hence, that which checks or prevents free action. "His very will seems to be in bonds and shackles."
3.
A fetterlike band worn as an ornament. "Most of the men and women... had all earrings made of gold, and gold shackles about their legs and arms."
4.
A link or loop, as in a chain, fitted with a movable bolt, so that the parts can be separated, or the loop removed; a clevis.
5.
A link for connecting railroad cars; called also drawlink, draglink, etc.
6.
The hinged and curved bar of a padlock, by which it is hung to the staple.
Shackle joint (Anat.), a joint formed by a bony ring passing through a hole in a bone, as at the bases of spines in some fishes.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Shackle" Quotes from Famous Books



... "belle France," Captain Brulot called for his writing-desk; when, at the instant, four men sprung up as if by enchantment behind the Mongo and myself, and grasping our arms with the gripe of a vice, held us in their clutches till the carpenter riveted a shackle on our feet. ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... cents. Genuine ebony handle, brass lining, german silver bolsters and shield. Large cutting blade can be opened without using the fingernail. Shackle for hanging ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... Certes, it is agreeable to give one's lackeys white silk stockings; but, to arrive at this grand result, it is not permitted to suppress the glory and the thought of a people, to overthrow the central tribune of the civilized world, to shackle the progress of mankind, and to shed torrents of blood. That is forbidden. "By whom?" you repeat, who see before you no one who forbids you anything. ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... of fools will go on as they have ever done; but to the wise few, to whom I address myself, I would say—Shake off at once and for ever the fancies and feelings, the creeds and customs that shackle you, and be true. We have come to a time when wise men will not be led blindfold in the footsteps of their predecessors, but will tear away the bandage and see for themselves. I have torn away mine, and looked. There is no Faith—it is shaken to its rotten foundation; ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... his respectability. He objected to Shelley's studying for the Bar, but was anxious to make him a member of Parliament; and Shelley and he dined with the Duke of Norfolk to discuss the matter, the result being that the younger man was highly indignant "at what he considered an effort to shackle his mind, and introduce him into life as a mere follower of the Duke." How unpromising as a party politician Shelley was may be gathered from the fact that in 1811, the same year in which he dined with the Duke, he not only wrote a satire on the Regent a propos of a ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... means of words. Of this national characteristic the writings of Petrarch are almost totally destitute. His sonnets indeed, from their subject and nature, and his Latin Poems, from the restraints which always shackle one who writes in a dead language, cannot fairly be received in evidence. But his Triumphs absolutely required the exercise of this talent, and ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... "It's the shackle, or one of the links that's gone, I think," I shouted to Williams, above the noise of the sail. "That's the spectacle ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson

... stepped from the plate at the main door to open it. But after Mrs Swinton and the children were gone in, the minister, who always stopped till they had done so, instead of then following, paused and looked up with a compassionate aspect, and laying his hand on the shoulder of old Willy Shackle, who was ringing the bell, ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... been leading the horse along what was called in Freestone a road, though its only pretensions to being a road was that it led from Shackle's farm to the fields which bordered the cliff, and consisted of two deep channels made by the farm tumbril wheels, and a shallow track formed by horses' hoofs, the said channels being more often full of water than of mud, and boasting the quality of never even in the ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... pupil, if so I may call you, that I wish to shackle that liberty you adorn while you assume: but which, if not greater, as you rightly observe, than that possessed by the Roman women, must at least be accompanied by great circumspection, when arrogated by one unmarried. Continue to draw crowds ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... enemy? Yes, and even to "freeze him with terror, glacer d'effroi;" but first to have domestic Traitors punished! Who are they that, carping and quarrelling, in their jesuitic most moderate way, seek to shackle the Patriotic movement? That divide France against Paris, and poison public opinion in the Departments? That when we ask for bread, and a Maximum fixed-price, treat us with lectures on Free-trade in grains? Can the human stomach satisfy itself with lectures on Free-trade; ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... does not bind, No other law shall shackle me? Slave to myself I will not be, Nor shall my future actions be confined By my own present mind. Who by resolves and vows engaged does stand For days that yet belong to fate, Does like an unthrift mortgage his ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... of us who have shaken our fists under the nose of the War Office and shouted, "All your blighting, Man-with-the-Mudrake officialdom shan't prevent us from serving our country." And it hasn't! The very Government itself, in spite of its monumental efforts, has not been able to shackle us into inertia or drug us into apathy. Such non-combatant francs-tireurs in England have done ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... Fennell, belonged to a family which gave officers to the British Navy—one of them serving directly under Nelson—and clergy to the Church of England. The Fennells were related to the Bronte sisters through the latter's mother; and one was closely connected with the Shackle who founded the original John Bull newspaper. Those, then, were my kinsfolk on the maternal side. My mother presented my father with seven children, of whom I was the sixth, being also the fourth son. I was born on November 29, 1853, at ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... and against the end of the wagon, the crank moves over and below the center, lifting up the catch into a position out of range of action, and from this position it cannot fall except it is released by the shunter. A shackle and links hang from the end of the drawbar for attachment to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various

... Grace; I could let that go. It is that I have nothing to live for,—nobody and nothing. My wife, Gracie! she is worse than nothing,—worse, oh! infinitely worse than nothing! She is a chain and a shackle. She is my obstacle. She tortures me and hinders me every way and everywhere. There will never be a home for me where she is; and, because she is there, no other woman can make a home for me. Oh, I wish ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... there shall be no intermarriage between rich and poor? That which has in all places and always been the business of private regulations, that a woman might marry into whatever family she has been engaged to, and that each man might take a wife out of whatever family he had contracted with, that ye shackle with the restraints of a most tyrannical law, by which ye sever the bonds of civil society and split one state into two. Why do ye not enact a law that a plebeian shall not dwell in the neighbourhood of a patrician? that ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... move," counseled the boy. "I've got to do whatever I decide upon quickly. If I don't escape, and that gang finds how I've freed my wrists, they'll shackle me hand and foot, and I'll not get another chance to get away. If it was only daylight I'd stand a much better opportunity of ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton

... that, too, perhaps because I am all, nearly all, Norse, and we do not shake off the strong and ancient shackle of our blood in the space of a few generations of Christian freedom and enlightenment. Yes, I see the finger of Fate upon this sign-post of an advertisement in a Church paper. His flag is represented ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... said he, derisively. "I guess there is—another mistake—another bluff that don't go. Get out o' here; and I tell you now, blast yer hide, that if you make me any more trouble 'board my ship yer liable to go over the side feet first, with a shackle to yer heels. And you, young man," he stormed, turning to the ensign, "you look round, if you like. There's my crew. All the navy officers you find you can have, and welcome to 'em." He turned his ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson

... originate, start, found. Belief, faith, persuasion, conviction, tenet, creed. Belittle, decry, depreciate, disparage. Bind, secure, fetter, shackle, gyve. Bit, jot, mite, particle, grain, atom, speck, mote, whit, iota, tittle, scintilla. Bluff, blunt, outspoken, downright, brusk, curt, crusty. Boast, brag, vaunt, vapor, gasconade. Body, corpse, remains, relics, carcass, cadaver, corpus. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... silence, the Piper spoke again. "There are chains that bind you," he began, "but they are chains of your own forging. No one else can shackle you—you must always do it yourself. Whatever is past is over, and I'm thinking you have no more to do with it than a butterfly has with the empty chrysalis from which he came. The law of life is growth, and we cannot linger—we must always ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed

... southern blacks, "Yankee" is a term of reproach, associated in their minds with poverty of fortune, meanness of spirit, wooden nutmegs, cypress hams, and such-like chicanes. Sad and strange to say, it is also associated with the whip, the shackle, and the cowhide. Strange, because these men are the natives of a land peculiarly distinguished for its Puritanism! A land where the purest religion and strictest morality ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... opportunities available to women and also to black people and Hispanics and other minorities. We've come a long way toward that goal. But there is still much to do. What we inherited from the past must not be permitted to shackle us in the future. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... He was looking at her with what Miss Annabel called his beautiful smile. "You can't possibly believe I want things to be right for you. But it's true. I mean to make them righter than they are, too. But I don't believe we can shackle ourselves together. ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... "was given me when I ran away the second time. The first time I was merely whipped. The third time I was shaven and this shackle put upon my leg." He raised his foot and pointed to an iron ring encircling the ankle. "The fourth time I was nailed by the ears to the pillory, whence come these ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... to gerraple with it," said the Hatter, with a valiant shake of his hat. "We're going to grab it by its throat, and shake it down, and shackle it so that in forty years it will become as tame as a fly or any other ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs

... doubt as to the starboard anchor having gone clear, the port anchor was dropped close to the foot of the Mole and the cable bowsed-to, with less than a shackle out. A three-knot tide was running past the Mole, and the scene alongside, created by the slight swell, caused the ship to roll. There was an interval of three or four minutes before the Brigadier or the Gloucester ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake

... solution of which, if Christianity is so plain and clear, would serve to render it more firm and solid? They find it answers their ends better to use their adversaries as the Mexicans do their slaves, whom they shackle before attacking, and then kill for daring ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach

... designed her for the exercise of her affections; why then seek wholly to suppress them, or to expend no thought whatever upon them? "Nature," says a recent writer, "will assert her rights over the beings she has made: she avenges all attempts to force or shackle her operations. We ought long ago to have been convinced that the only power allowed to us, is the power of direction." Yet "to girls have been denied the very thoughts of love,—even in its noblest and purest form."—They "know nothing at all of it, or nothing but what they have clandestinely ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... frame as he spoke these words. A mystery rigid as Fate seemed to shackle me. Without seeing him go, I knew that Vannelle had left the room. Again was I conscious of the carriage-rumble growing fainter, fainter, fainter in the distance. A dream of passionate excitement, a phantasmagoria ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... rivet into the shackle on his left arm, a spurt of bruised blood from the old Mexican ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon

... tuaitheal (i.e. against the course of the sun), the old man was ready to come down and thrash him. On coming to a house the visitor should go round it deiseal to secure luck in the object of his visit. After milking a cow the dairy-maid should strike it deiseal with the shackle, saying 'out and home' (mach 'us dachaigh). This secures its safe return. The word is from deas, right-hand, and iul, direction, and of itself contains no allusion to the sun." Compare M. Martin, "Description of the Western Islands of Scotland," in J. Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... an old press, and we were not strong men—my brother and I; nor could we fix the neck of the beam firmly in the shackle.' ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... necessary to support the King's Government, religion, schools, and to reward public services, should be raised without such oppressive taxes as would oppress the natives, and shackle their industry. ...
— Speeches of His Majesty Kamehameha IV. To the Hawaiian Legislature • Kamehameha IV

... ye, mem," he said; "I daurna. I hae sic a regaird for yer son 'at afore I wad du onything to hairm him, I wad hae my twa han's chappit frae the shackle bane." ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... conversation, the vivacity of which is in a tentative play about the subject. And this is a sufficient reason why one should repudiate any private conversation reported in the newspapers. It is bad enough to be held fast forever to what one writes and prints, but to shackle a man with all his flashing utterances, which may be put into his mouth by some imp in the air, is intolerable slavery. A man had better be silent if he can only say today what he will stand by tomorrow, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... The conventional prejudices that shackle the movements of members of the higher classes in Britain are scarcely recognised in Canada; and a man is at liberty to choose the most profitable manner of acquiring wealth, without the fear of ridicule and ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... the transfer was completed. The master seldom ill-treated his slaves, except in cases of reiterated disobedience, rebellion, or flight; he could arrest his runaway slaves wherever he could lay his hands on them; he could shackle their ankles, fetter their wrists, and whip them mercilessly. As a rule, he permitted them to marry and bring up a family; he apprenticed their children, and as soon as they knew a trade, he set them up in business in his own name, allowing them a share ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero



Words linked to "Shackle" :   restraint, hobble, cuff, pinion, handcuff, confine, padlock, restrain, handlock, chains, hamper, bar, trammel, ball and chain, bond, manacle



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