BALL AND CHAIN • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Ball and chain

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/bɔl ənd tʃeɪn/ Listen

Ball and chain

noun

Heavy iron ball attached to a prisoner by a chain.

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Etymology of 'Ball and chain'

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"Ball and chain" Quotes from Famous Books

... establishment to be erected. Gardens and fields were to be laid out and planted, and altogether there was no lack of work to be performed. The prisoners were required to work under guard, and the worst of them were ornamented with ball and chain, like the occupants of many a prison in different parts of the world. They were treated just as rigorously as they had been on board the ships that brought them out. Their lodgings were somewhat more spacious, but by no stretch of fancy could they be called ...

— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox

... will, but was advised by Mr. Sears to stop—and stopped! With Madame B. I am of course anathema—I have not heard from her since. The bank, bien entendu, is of the past, and you, I hear, are in the far West. How you will revel in the freedom and how good it must have been to kick off the ball and chain! If anyone can be trusted not to abuse leisure, it is you, dear Jerry—you won't appear so culpable, as a poor American always does, somehow, under such circumstances. Even I feel unjustifiably idle now, so I have taken up some of Mr. Elder's fads—what ...

— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

Words linked to "Ball and chain" : trammel, hamper, shackle, bond