fetter

Everyday

1. Fetters are chains put round a prisoner's hands or feet. (old use) tree →
2. To fetter someone is to chain them up so they cannot move freely. tree →

In the lessons

in fairy tales and old stories fetters are chains that hold a prisoner or a monster; the word is also used for anything that holds back freedom

Examples

• No fetters hold me now, said the tree. tree →
• The conquered kings were chained up with golden fetters. tree →
• The guards fettered the prisoner's hands. tree →

Note

nothing for maths

In Jewish tradition

Fetters stand for captivity or affliction, as with Joseph in prison. The psalms also picture God freeing prisoners from them.

Interpretation. Tradition reads the fetters as slavery or suffering sent to teach a person, and God as the one who loosens the bound.

Examples

• His feet they hurt with fetters, his person was laid in iron; (Writings PSA.105.18, JPS 1917) tree →
• To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; (Writings PSA.149.8, JPS 1917) tree →
• And if they be bound in fetters, and be holden in cords of affliction; (Writings JOB.36.8, JPS 1917) tree →

Note

nothing for maths