Straitjacket

Definitions

1. A jacket-like garment with very long sleeves which can be secured in place, thus preventing the wearer from moving his or her arms. Often used in psychiatric hospitals to prevent patients from injuring themselves or others.
2. Any situation seen as confining or restricting.
   figuratively

Equivalents

Examples

“There’s a couple of people actually wearing duct-tape straitjackets.”

“our ever-increasing bureaucratic straitjacket of regulations”

“[I]f we remain⟳ in one discipline, we remain⟳ in a straitjacket; an adequate theory of language evolution requires a lot of interdisciplinary work⟳.”

CEFR level