Fetter

 WORD OF THE DAY

fetter / noun / FET-er

Definition
1: a chain or shackle for the feet
2a: something that confines
2b: restrain
3a: to put fetters on
3b: shackle
4: to restrain from motion, action, or progress

Examples
"The Alaska Constitution was written by a months-long gathering of 55 elected men and women in Fairbanks during the winter of 1955-1956. … They wanted a legislature free of the fetters that hobbled the older state governments—restraints that had prompted a nationwide outcry for constitutional reform in the years prior to the Alaska Constitutional Convention."
— Gordon Harrison, The Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner, 24 Apr. 2022

And then there’s the New Deal, another famous attempt to slap fetters on the rough beast of capitalism.
— Jonah Goldberg, National Review, 22 Nov. 2019

Did You Know?
While now used as a more general term for something that confines or restrains, "fetter" was originally applied specifically to a chain or shackle for the feet.
Not surprisingly, the word's Old English ancestor, "feter," is etymologically shackled to "fōt," the Old English ancestor of "foot."
Both words have a long history in the English language, dating back to the early 9th century, and are chained to Sanskrit "pad," Latin ped- and pes, Greek pod- and "pous," Gothic "fotus," Norse "fōtr," and Old High German fuoz.