restraint

noun — 2 senses

restraint

noun

/ɹɪˈstɹeɪnt/

Etymology From Middle English restreynte, from Old French restreinte; more at restrain.

1

Something that restrains, ties, fastens or secures.

  • Make sure all the restraints are tight.
  • At the centre of Stalin’s superiority over his competitors was certainly his intense will, just as Napoleon ranked what he called ‘moral fortitude’ higher in a general than genius or experience. When Milovan Djilas said to Stalin during the Yugoslav-Soviet discussions in Moscow during the war that the Serbian politician Gavrilović was ‘a shrewd man’, Stalin commented, as though to himself: ‘Yes, there are politicians who think shrewdness is the main thing in politics. . . .’⁴⁴ His was a will-power taken to a logical extreme. There is something non-human about his almost total lack of normal restraints upon it.1968, Robert Conquest, “The Purge Begins”, in The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties, Macmillan Company, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 75:
2

Control or caution; reserve.

  • Try to exercise restraint when talking to your boss.
  • City will feel nonplussed when they review the tape and Pellegrini had to summon all his restraint in the post-match interviews.November 2 2014, Daniel Taylor, “Sergio Agüero strike wins derby for Manchester City against 10-man United”, in guardian.co.uk:
Derived terms
chemical restraint, child restraint, head restraint, judicial restraint, nonrestraint, prior restraint, restraintful, restraintless, restraint of trade, self-restraint, supplemental restraint system, unrestraint
Related terms
constraint, restrain, restrict

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.