hamper

hamper vb Hamper, trammel, clog, fetter, shackle, manacle, hog-tie are comparable when meaning to hinder or impede one so that one cannot move, progress, or act freely.

To hamper is to encumber or embarrass by or as if by an impediment or restraining influence

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the long dress hampered her freedom of movement

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the view is vigorously urged today that rhyme and meter hamper the poet's free expression— Lowes

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never . . . had she so desired to be spontaneous and unrestrained; never . . . had she so felt herself hampered by her timidity, her self-criticism, her deeply ingrained habit of never letting herself go— H. G. Wells

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To trammel is more specifically to entangle or confine as if enmeshed in a net

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people whose speech and behavior were trammeled ... by the usages of polite society— Gibbs

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their life was at once dangerously trammeled and dangerously free— Buchan

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To clog is to hamper the movement, often the ascent, of someone or something by something extraneous, encumbering, or useless

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the wings of birds were clogged with ice and snow— Dry den

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man is ever clogged with his mortality— Brontë

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the Cynic preached abstinence from all common ambitions, rank, possessions, power, the things which clog man's feet— Buchan

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To fetter is to confine or restrain so that one's freedom or power to progress is lost

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I refused to visit Shelley that I might have my own unfettered scope— Keats

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we reverence tradition, but we will not be fettered by it— Inge

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watched a world prepare for war while he was fettered by the nation's propensity for isolationism— Kefauver

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To shackle and to manacle differ little in their extended use, both implying such interference with one's freedom that one feels that movement, progress, or action is impossible if the bonds are not broken

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he would not be shackled in his reasoning by the rules of logic

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grief too can manacle the mind— Lovelace

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Hog-tie usually implies such restraint as effectively interferes with one's ability to move, act, or function

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industries hog-tied by restrictions on imports of raw materials

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as soon as the senator can get us hog-tied to that extent, he will . . . ram these unconstitutional measures down our throats— Congressional Record

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Analogous words: *hinder, impede, obstruct, block, bar: *embarrass, discomfit: baffle, balk, thwart, foil, *frustrate

Antonyms: assist (persons): expedite (work, projects)