From a Germanic word tram meaning "log", "beam", or "timber", thrams ("beam") in the Gothic Bible. Related to Ancient Greek θράμβη(thrámbē) ("beam") from which Latin trabs derives.[1] Cognates include German tram, Czech tram, Polish tram, Scottish tram ("log", "beam" or "shaft"), German trämel ("lever", "pole" or "stick"),
or 'shaft', with various related terms in Germanic languages meaning wheelbarrow handle, ladder rung, step of a chair, etc.
Early horse shackles were literally made from logs or beams, so the etymology of this sense is comparable to the etymology of clog or stocks, or the French "entraves" or Spanish "trabas" which derive from Latin trabs ("log" or "beam").
Related to trabs#Latin, trabas, travar, entraver, entraves, trave?
A trammel ties together each pair of a horse's legs on the same side, forcing the horse to amble.trammel rings (4) used to hang cooking pots
A shackle or hobble, especially of a kind used on a horse's legs to force it to amble, a gait in which the two legs on the same side step simultaneously.
Something which forces or teaches compliance or impedes activity, progress, or freedom.
The men who came here were able to throw off all the trammels of tradition and established doctrine.
An implement hanging over a fire, used to suspend cooking pots at adjustable height. One variant has a vertical bar with sawtooth-shaped notches along its side held to another bar by a strap; another is a hanging chain of rings.
A beam compass, a tool used for describing circles and measuring or transferring lengths, especially a sturdy one as used in carpentry or metalwork
The cursor or trammel head of a beam compass.
A tool for describing ellipses, consisting of a base with a pair of grooves at right angles to each other, and a beam to which are attached two adjustable pegs which slide in the grooves as well as an adjustable scribing, drawing, or cutting tool which traces the ellipse.
A mechanism for converting reciprocating motion to rotary motion, based on the elliptic trammel
A beam with an indicator pin used for (also tram-staff)
1854, Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts:
In their vote, you would get something of some value, at least, however small; but in the other case, only the trammelled judgment of an individual, of no significance, be it which way it might.
From Middle Englishtrameyle, from Old Frenchtramail(“net for catching fish”), from Late Latintremaculum, generally considered to derive from
trans- ("across" or "through") or tri-(“three”) + macula(“mesh”). These long fishing nets were stretched across a river from bank to bank, and consisted of two or three meshes, catching fish who pushed one layer through another.
Ernest Weekley speculates that the name for a trammel net, in English as well as Romance languages, might instead derive from Germanic tram meaning "beam" or "stake" (see above), as these nets were staked to each bank.
A type of large fishingnet net with two or three layers, whose slack layer has a fine mesh and taut other layers have a coarse mesh, placed in the water as a kind of net wall; a fish pushes the fine mesh through the coarse, and is caught or entrammeled in the kind of net bag thus formed.
A large rectangular net mounted on a pole at each end, used at night for catching partridges, pheasants, or other birds which nest in open fields.
1556, An ancient inventory of the effects of a country gentleman[1]:
Item a new draw Nett an old draw Nett, an old Trammell two gutter Netts and three little bowe Netts
1594, Hugh Plat, The jewell house of art and nature[2], London, page 54:
Pitch a tramell ouerthwart a riuer where there is good store of fishe, then goe vpwarde against the streame a prettie waie from the net, and as you come downeward againe with the streame, throw in some limestones here and there dispersedlie, on both the sides of the riuer. These vnslaked limestones will make such a crackling in the water, that no fish dare return backe againe vpon them, but will run forwarde and mash themselues in the tramell.
1674, An exact abridgment of all the statutes in force. ...[3]:
Stat. 14 Car. 2 cap. 28. For encouragement of Fishing, and preventing the disorder and abuses in draining nets and unlawful engins, It is enacted, That none shall in any year from the first of June till the last of November, take any Fish in the Sea, in Cornwall or Devon, with any tramel, driff-net, or stream-net or nets of that sort, unless it be at a league & halfs distance from the shore, on penalty of forfeiture of the nets or the value thereof and one months imprisonment without bail.
1764, R. Brown, “letter from R. Brown”, in Benjamin Martin, Miscellaneous correspondence, containing a variety of subjects, ... Vol 4[4], London, page 1109:
I intend making a Party of Pleasure of it; as we frequently go down the River from Dettingen a Fish-feasting, I propose to set a very large Trammel with Meshes at least two Feet square, and 500 Yards long, first down one Bank, then cross the River, and up the opposite Bank, secured with flight Pegs on the Banks and proper Floats, on Purpose that they may give Way as soon as he strokes, and so let him involve himself in the slack Net, which must be well secured at each End with strong Ropes, lest he should run away with Net and all. This is all to be done the Evening before. In the Morning, my Friends, both Gentlemen and Ladies, in their fine Cutters, along with me, will come down the fine calm River (about the Breadth of the Canal in St. James’s Park) with our Music, Wine, &c. driving the Manatee (with the Clangor of our French Horns) before us into the Net; and when we get him fairly entrammeled (for I suppose him no less than a Bull), to see him plung awhile in the fine clear River, with the grassy Bottom, before we drag him to Shore, will be a Sight not inferior ti the Death of a Fox or Stagg, or indeed any Party of rural Diversion you have in happy Britain. His Carcass will make a noble Feast both for us, and all our black Attendants.
1848, Charles Alexander Johns, A Week at the Lizard[5], London, pages 242–243:
The trammel is a long and deep net with a double mesh, one large enough to allow the fish to pass through, the other much smaller. The net is sunk to the bottom of the sea by means of an anchor at each end and a row of leads along the lower edge, the upper edge being buoyed up by a series of corks, but without reaching the surface. It is laid in the evening and examined in the morning, when the fish are found entangled between the large and small meshes. One end of a stout rope is made fast to each anchor, the other end being attached to a string of large corks to mark the position of the net. The fish caught in this are generally dead before they are taken in, and are very frequently partially eaten by crabs, which often ecome entangled themselves, and are caught together with their prey.
1883, Francis Francis, (Please provide the book title or journal name)[6]:
In lakes they either do this round the sedge beds, or they use large drag nets (seines) or they set long common trammel nets, and examine them night and morning. The seine is simply run out in a big semi-circle, and drawn home on the shore. The trammel [...] is extended out at right angles with the shore, and fixed by poles.
1923, "Banderas", Sporting Reminiscences of South America, 1919–1921[7], London, page 54:
Coquimbo is a very pretty little harbour, situated in a bay in which flat fish abound. The trammel proved the most efficient fish-producer.
1981, G. Bedson, The Notorious Poacher[8], Hindhead, Surrey, page 78:
In the sluice the water was no more than two feet deep and was always choked full of fish, a lot of them good big trout. Just try to imagine what this meant. Two brick walls, a concrete bottom and only one way out. A 3 yard trammel net would have caught all those fish, [....] Those trout can thank their lucky stars that we were more interested in other game. There was not much money to be earned in poaching fresh water fish.
2014, Jase Robertson, Mark Schlabach, Good Call[9], New York: Howard Books, page 27:
A trammel net is like a ten-foot wall stretching across the river. There are floats on top of the net and weights on the bottom. Of course, there’s netting in the middle. When fish go through the outlying walls of the netting, they immediately turn to the right or the left and get tangled in the webbing. [...] The nets were one hundred fifty yards long.
2018, John McWilliams, “Hastings Beach Boat”, in British Motor Fishing Vessels[10], Stroud, Gloucestershire:
In the late twentieth century, trammel nets largely replaced trawling and brough prosperity to Hastings.
1586, “Felonie. Fesants, Partridges.”, in An abstract of all the penal statutes which be general, in force and use[11], London, page 133:
Prouided alwayes, that this Act shall not in any wise extend to Lowbellers, Tramellers, or others, which shall unwillingly happen to take any Partridges or Fesants by night under any Tramell, Lowbell, Roadnet, or other engin: So as they & euery of them do presently loose & let go euery Fesant and Partridge so taken, and suffer them presently to flie and goe at large at the place where they shall happen so to be taken, without willingly killing, or wilfully hurting any such Fesant or Partridge, so taken in any manner of sort: any thing in this Act &c. notwithstanding. 23.Eliz.10. S. Iustices of peace 38. Leetes 18
1655, Gervase Markham, Hungers Prevention: Or, The whole Art Of Fowling By Water and Land.[12], London:
There is another way of taking both of great and small Fowle, by Night in Champaine Countries, and that is with the Tramell, or long Tramel Net, being much like unto that Nette which is formerly discribed for the Lowbell, both in shape, mash, and all other proportions, yet if you please it may bee somewhat longer but not much broader, because then you shall be forst to runne apon it and indanger the breaking.
a modern Poet who writes such a Play should never be without a Fool-call. He must have the knack of jugging Fools into a Pit, as a Country Squire does Partridges into a Trammel
1779, Eleazar Albin, Natural History of English song-birds[14], London, page 80:
but the most destructive way is in the dark nights with a net called a Trammel; ’tis a very murdering net, taking all sorts of birds that it comes near, as Partridges, Quails, &c.
1835, Harry Harewood, A Dictionary of Sports[15], London, pages 44–45:
The common way of taking Larks is in the night, with nets called trammels. These are usually made of thirty-six yards in length, and about six yards over, with six ribs of packthread, which at the ends are put upon two poles about sixteen feet long, and made lesser at each end. These are to be drawn over the ground by two men, and every five or six steps the net is made to tough the ground, otherwise it will pass over the birds without touching them. When they are felt to fly up against the net, it is clapped down, and then all are safe that are under it. The darkest nights are best for this sport; and the net will not only take larks, but all other birds that roost on the ground. [...] When the weather grows gloomy, the larker changes his engine, and makes use of a trammel-net, twenty-seven or twenty-eight feet long and five broad, which is put on two poles, eighteen feet long, and carried by men under each arm, who pass over the fields and quarter the ground as a setting dog: when they hear or feel a lark bit the net, they drop it down, and so the birds are taken.
1888, Robert Herrick, “The Country Life”, in Chrysomela[16], page 11:
Thy witty wiles to draw, and get The lark into the trammel net
1592, (Please provide the book title or journal name)[17]:
If any person whatsoeuer, haue taken, or killed any Phesants or Partriches, with any manner of net, or other deuise whatsoeuer, upon the freehold of any other, without speciall license, or in the night time, except it were unwillingly, by lowbelling or tramelling, who also did then & there presently let them go againe. Loose Twentie shillings for each Phesant. X.s. for each Partrich.
1594, “An Old-fashioned Love”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):
The net is love’s right worthily supported; Bacchus one end, the other Ceres guideth; Like trammellers this god and goddess sported To take each foule that in their walkes abideth.
1554, David Lindsay, Ane dialog betuix Experience and ane courteour off the miserabyll estait of the warld.[18]:
I dar weill say, within this fyftie yeir Rome hes ressett furth of this Regioun For Bullis & Benefyce (quhilk thay by full deir) Quhilk mycht ful weil haif payit a kings ransōn Bot war I worthye for to weir ane crown Preistis suld no more, our substance so consume Sendyng yeirlye so gret ryches to Rome In to thare Tramalt nett, thay fangit ane fysche More nor ane quhaill worthye of memorye Of quhome thay haue had mony dayntay dysche Be quhome thay ar exaltit to gret glorye That maruelous monstour, callit Purgatorye Howbeit tyll ws, it is nocht amyable It hes to thame bene veray profytable.
I say, that offence to finde fauour is a fonde course, for that were to catch the moone with a trammell, to charme the haire with a tabor, to couple the Cinick with the Stoick, or the Snayle with the Storke, for women are like quailes not charmed without a sweete call, like Dolphins not allured but by musick, and shew of obsernance towards them, is the best meanes to be soueraignes ouer them
1601, Gerard Malynes, Saint George for England[20]:
to ease my fatigable memory, the receptacle whereof is otherwise barred from all succeeding matters, like a trammell replenished with fish, which can containe no more then her full (as it were) naturall imbibition.
1657, Eldred Revett, Poems by Eldred Revett:
VVe move proportionably Regula, How the fields dravvn in mystick order lie Spread vvith the lines of streight Geometrie: As the neat Art vvould into trammel get, And for the God of vvar make a nevv net.
1792, Thomas Holcroft,, Anna St. Ives[21], volume 4:
She had no hand in spreading the trammel, into which, buzzard like, I have been lured. It was the scheme of my very good and careful mother; for which I have been very sincerely writing her a letter with more thanks than words; [...] I have been brought from Naples to Paris, not as I supposed to settle a few paltry debts of a deceased uncle, but to see, fall in love with, and be rib-hooked to this angel. This my good mother as I understand thinks the kindest act of her life.—Nay, I think so too;
1845, John Mills, The Old Hall[22], volume 3, London, page 10:
Jacob was perplexed more and more. He could not solve the mystery, which, like a spider’s mesh, was woven in a thick film about his mind’s eye; and, despite his labour to break it, there remained, a clinging trammel of doubt and wonder.
1962 [1951], Henry Williamson, The Dark Lantern[23], London, page 82:
and she found herself yet once again netted within the dreaded trammel of ordinary life. One was caught in a net of circumstances beyond one's control. One morning she and Hetty had been rowed in a boat upon th eblue water, and near the rocks, corcks were lying and a net hung down below them. Peering over the side they saw, in the clear depths as flaws in glass, many fish twisting in the trammel, which was of two nets, one with a wide mesh to entangle them while the smaller mesh held them by the gills. There they would remain until the fishermen returned. It had seemed so cruel, and they had never eaten fish again without thinking of the poor things twisting and turning in the trammel, unable to escape.
If it were done, when ’tis done, then ’twer well, It were done quickly: If th’ Assassination Could trammell vp the Consequence, and catch With his surcease, Successe: that but this blow Might be the be all, and the end all. Heere, But heere, vpon this Banke and Schoole of time, Wee’ld iumpe the life to come.
Open thine eyes, Sin-seiled soule, and see What cobweb tyes They are that trammel thee. Not profits, pleasures, honours, as thou thinkest; But losse, pain, shame, at which thou vainly winkest.
1820, Keats, Lamia ii:
To entangle, trammel up, and snare Your soul in mine, and labyrinth you there, Like the sweet scent in an unbudded rose.
1850 September 21, “The Agricultoral Gazette”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)[26]:
if [...] a steam-driven cultivator can be brought to bear, which, after the simple and beautiful example of the mole, shall play out the long comedy of our present field cultivation in a single act, present a finelly-granulated seed-bed by a single process, almost at the hour required, and trammel up the ‘long summer fallow’ into the labour of a day, with an accuracy as perfect as the turning of a Lathe, and an aëration (and consequent oxygenation) of the soil as diffusive and minute as that of a scattered mole-heap, or the dust flying from a steam-saw bench.
Shakespeare glossary, 1744
To trammell up
https://archive.org/details/worksofshakespea09shak_0/page/n335/
to stop: A metaphor taken from a Tramel-net which is used to be put cross a river from bank to bank, and catches all the fish that come, suffering none to pass.
Breuer, Horst (2002). How to Trammel up the Consequence and Catch Success: “Macbeth” 1.7.3-4. Modern Philology, 99(3), 376–378. doi:10.1086/493080
1898 October 1, “Our Path in China and the Philippines”, in The American[27], volume 29, number 738, page 209:
The giant must awaken, must awaken himself or be awakened; must awaken, develop, and exert his energies and power for his own defense or he will be awakened to find himself dismembered, the prey of his despoilers, or to find himself so tied, entrammeled in the meshes of his would be despoilers that he can only move and exert his power in a way that will aggrandize and enrich such despoilers and so entrammeled that these despoilers can spur him into activity with impunity and force him to exert his power and work for their profit not his own.
1955, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King:
But who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?
1617, Gervase Markham, “Book 4, Ch. 1”, in Cavalarice, or the English horseman[28]:
doubtles the Tramell of which I am to speake more largely hereafter, was the first and most auncientest inuention that euer was found out for the making of horses to amble
1671, Gervase Markham, The perfect horse-man[29]:
Ambling by the Tramel. There is another, (I will not call him the best, because his error may be as great as any) and he will make his Horse Amble by the help of the Tramel only, which I confess is nearest the best and most assured way, yet he hath many errors, as followeth.
1682, one of the embassy, The last account from Fez[30]:
They use neither Rack nor Manger, but fasten them by the four feet in the nature of a Tramel and feed them on the ground;
1802, John Lawrence, A Philosophical and Practical Treatise on Horses[31], 2nd edition, London:
[Michael Baret] reprobates, in a becoming and forcible manner, the use of lacerating and torturing bits, trammels for pacing, shoes of advantage, weights on the loins, and all such absurd and illegitimate methods of training the horse; recommending from right reason, and his own experience, the adoption of mild bits, and none other than gentle and persuasive methods, attempered with firmness, and occasionally necessary severity. This rational and manly practice he confirms with the philosophic observation, that whatever conquest is obtained by mere violence, is only exterior and temporary.
1828, William Henry Smyth, Sketch of the Present State of the Island of Sardinia[32], page 99:
Though travelling in Sardinia is not yet facilitated by good roads, the agreeable amble of their horses greatly promotes equestrian exercise. It is called the “passo portante”, and differs so much from the natural amble, that some horses, from its difficulty, never attain the correct step, but fall into a shuffling trot. The breaking in is harshly managed by means of rope trammels, and requires three weeks or a month; but when the “portante” is once gained, it is never afterwards lost. In moving along, the horses successively raise the fore and hind foot of the same side, and then those of the other, so that, at the same instant, they stand either on two right or two left legs. They keep up this pace for several hours, and though not graceful, I have found it a great comfort while travelling in that country.
1809, John Lawrence, The history and delineation of the horse, in all his varieties[33], London, pages 88–89:
In the account of disbursements for King Edward’s wardrobe, which contains, among other articles, the expence of Horses bought in France, there is an item for trammels, or those implements with which Horses are taught to amble or pace. In vulgar Latin, these were styled traymelli, or traynelli, supposed to be derived from the Italian word, tramenare, to shake or wriggle, of such sort being the motion of the Horse in pacing. This account was written in Latin, as were almost all memoirs, as well as law deeds and prayers, in that pedantic age. [...] To return to the trammels, they were made of yarn or strong list, and with those the Horse’s fore-legs were tied together, and he being forced forward in that state, acquired in time that short wriggling and oblique mode of progression called ambling. Trammels were also made of iron like fetters; these, in course, were fabricated by the ferrarii or soleari, the ferrers, or shoers with iron, who must, of fashionable necessity, be described in Latin. They also shod the hinder feet, with long and sometimes sharp points, projecting from the toe, which co-operated, in the same intent, with the trammels upon the fore-legs. What ridiculous pains, to harrass and torture, and totally spoil the natural and excellent paces of the animal! Polydore Virgil remarks, that the English did not affect the trot, but excelled in the softer pace of the amble. For the credit of modern common sense, the English of the present day, beyond all other nations, are attached to the trot, and have lost even the resemblance of the amble, for which they have wisely substituted that natural and pleasant pace, the canter.
1895, Samuel L. Boardman, Handbook of the Turf[34], New York, page 17:
In ambling, the horse moves two legs on the same side at the same time, and both feet strike as one, the strokes—one, two—completing the revolution. In England, in the time of Edward II, (1307–1327), horses were taught to amble or pace by the use of trammels made of strong listing, or irons, which were attached like chains and fetters, to control the gait.
1956, Walter H. Boling, Neck suspended trammel for dogs, US Patent 2,790,418[35]:
[A dog] equipped with a trammel of this character will soon learn not to run or move at high speeds and will desist from running after vehicles, scooters and bicycles. The trammel will not unduly restrict the walking or light movements of the dog and is not unduly uncomfortable or in any way painful in use.
1989, “Seventeenth Century Racehorse Training Manuals: Gallop, Amble and Trot”, in National Sporting Library and Museum Newsletter:
When the horse was not a natural ambler, Markham advocated the use of trammels, also called traves. This 17th century equivalent of the hopples are currently used on pacing Standardbred horses in harness races.
1587, Leonard Mascall, The first booke of cattell[36], London, page 175:
The surest and best way to take forth the hawe, and not perishing the horse eye, is this. First, (for the more safetie) tramell his legges on the one side. Then put a payre of barnacles on his nose, and another on his farthest eare, and so let one holde them fast.
1617, Gervase Markham, “Book 4, Ch. 9”, in Cavalarice, or the English horseman[37], page 45:
When your Horse is thus tramelled aboue knee, which in any case I would haue you doe, either in some emptie Barne, or in some faire greene Close, you shall then as gently as you can, lead him forward, and by little and little make him goe faster and faster, till you see him strike into a faire amble, which he cannot chuse but doe, because his feete are so linkt and tyed together, that hee cannot remoue any of his fore-legges, but the hindmost legg of the same side must follow it:
1684, Peter Thatcher, “Aug 26, 1684”, in Rev. Peter Thatcher’s Journal[38], Milton, Massachussetts:
At larg yf thou lett her, Thay seke and can nott fynd her, Yett wer thou much better In trammells to bynd her; A loock and a fetter Befor and behynd her, At lyver to sett her, Wher thou lyst to asyne her. Now, ty the mare, Tom boy, &c.
1681, John Dryden, “i, p. 11”, in The Spanish fryar[40]:
if Love goes on as it begins, for ought I know, by to morrow morning you may hear of me in Rhyme and Sonnet. I tell you truly, I do not like these Symptoms in my self: perhaps I may go shufflingly at first; for I was never before walk’d in Trammels; yet I shall drudge and moil at Constancy, till I have worn off the hitching in my pace.
1688, Thomas Brown, The reasons of Mr. Bays changing his religion ...:
Gad forgive me for’t—it dropt from me e’re I was aware, but I shall in time wear off this hitching in my gate, and walk in Catholick Trammels as well as the best of them; nature I must confess, is not overcome on the sudden
1689, Harvey Gideon, The art of curing diseases by expectation[41]:
P. Good Sir, I am a poor Weaver, I have a Wife and six Children, I never wrought at a French Loom before, a cursed Trammel, I am an object of Charity, such as your Bills point at, and I humbly beg your Misericorde.
1693, Michael seigneur de Montaigne, translated by Charles Cotton, (Please provide the book title or journal name)[42]:
’Tis a sign of Crudity and Indigestion to vomit up what we eat in the same condition it was swallow’d down, and the Stomach has not perform’d its office, unless it have altered the form and conditi∣on of what was committed to it to concoct: so our minds work only upon trust, being bound and compell’d to follow the Appetite of anothers Fancy, enslav’d and captivated under the Authority of another’s Instruction, we have been so subjected to the Tramel, that we have no free, nor natural Pace of our own, our own Vigour and Liberty is extinct and gone.
1698, John Lacy, Sauny the Scott, or, The taming of the shrew a comedy[43]:
There, Geraldo, take her for me, if you have any Mind to a Wife; to her, you are Young, and may clap Trammel’s on her, and strike her to a Pace in time; I dare not deal with her, I shall never get her out of her high Trot.
1736, “Advice from a Guardian, in a Letter to a young Gentleman at the University”, in Henry Stonecastle, ed., editor, The Universal Spectator[44], volume 2, London, page 23:
Whereas, so many Things are requisite to make the Marriage State agreeable, that a Man must be very fond of a Fiddle and a Sack Posset, if he will enter into it without giving himself Time to consider them. [...] To be ty’d in a Manner Neck and Heels, and from the Possession to become but a better Sort of a Steward of your own Fortune. — You had need be well assured your Trammels will fit easy, before you suffer them to be so fast put on.
1762, anonymous author, A letter from an independent man to his friend [...][45], London, page 15:
but as to the laborious Gentleman, who hath long paced in the tramels of the State, can his industry and experience be proper subjects of sarcasm from the same author, who seems so hurt with inexperience in others?
1794, Samuel Foote, The Englishman in Paris[46], London, page 14:
harkee Mr. Subtle, I’ll out of my trammels when I hunt with the king.
1845, John Weale, Weales Quarterly Papers on Engineering[47], volume 5, page 22:
The regulations were found to impose great obstacles to all attempts to supply an altered market with an altered or suitable commoddity. The fees and fines, and expense of maintaining these corporation shackles on competition, were heavy, which made their amount be felt, with a lower rate of profit, not only as an injurious but oppressive tax; and the system was now seen to be one which operated practically to compel manufacturers to reside in cities, in order that they might be in the grasp and trammels of monopolizing corporations.
1902, Archibald Geikie, The Geology of Eastern Fife[48], Glasgow, page 25:
Though trained in the strictest school of Wernerianism, Boné soon emancipated himself from its artificial trammels, and recognized the true volcanic nature of many of the rocks of Scotland.
1921, Ernest H. Short, Man and Cotton[49], London: Hodder and Stoughton, page 32:
The Greek dramatists, decade after decade, freed their art from the trammels of ritual until it was possible to represent real men and women on the stage.
1954, Carl Boyer, “Notes on the evolution of a subject and a name”, in The Mathematics Teacher, volume 47, number 7, page 458:
As the prophet of analysis, the mantle of Euler had fallen upon Lagrange, whose aim was to free as much of mathematics as possible from the trammels of geometrical construction
1655, Lazarus and his sisters discoursing of paradise[50], page 35:
He is broader then the earth, what then can man say to limit him? Let mans busie mind no more bethink how to tramel him, but with shame fall down before him for this abuse of his infiniteness, lest his greatness fall on man, and devour his spirit.
If your Majesty command, I shall not fear the riches or greatness of the East India company, or Merchants of London, but I will tramel them and reduce them to the due obedience of your Majesties commands, and the Law of the Kingdom.
1727, Alexander Pope, “letter to John Gay, Oct 16, 1727”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)[52]:
You are happily rid of many cursed ceremonies, as well as of many ill, and vicious habits, of which few or no men escape the Infection, who are hackney’d and tramelled in the ways of a Court
1760, George Alexander Stevens, The history of Tom Fool[53], volume 2, page 182:
had she not been one of the finest Women in England, as to Person, her Money should never have made me trammel myself in the matrimonial Tether. I was always too full of Spirits for a domestic sedentary Life, I could not bear Confinement, cooped up like a tame Rabbit;
1763, Francis Fawkes, William Woty, “A Fragment of Milton, From the Italian”, in The poetical calendar[54]:
WHen, in your language, I unskill’d address The short-pac’d efforts of a tramell’d muse;
wherefore, not having Poverty to chill, nor Perplexity to trammel it, Fancy takes a full, unbounded Scope; and as all write for Praise, none for Hire, the Quality, and not the Quantity of Things written is regarded;
1822, Paul Brown, “2.1 Of abuses and defects, in respect to morals”, in An inquiry concerning the nature, end, and practicality of a course of philosophical education[56], Washington, page 49:
For it is even looked on by the commonality as a mark of superior ingenuity, in a young upstart, to act surprizing feats of petty villainy, and be (as they call it) ‘a little knavish;’ and to trammel the young gentry to the demure livery of preceptive discipline, is thought superstitious: and the world esteems them not so sublime models of imitation, nor so fit objects of public remark.
1830, A mechanic, “Letter to the editor”, in The Working Man’s Advocate[57], volume 1, number 15, New York:
Is it not a melancholly fact that, with one or two honorable exceptions, our daily press is as completely trammelled as if they were under a censorship? Is it not true – and pity ’tis too true – that they are as servile and time serving, as debased and debasing, as the venal part of the press of Great Britain?
1837, George Windsor Earl, The Eastern Seas[58], London, page 30:
The accumulation of wealth forms their sole object, and being more energetic, and also more crafty than the Javanese, they have always managed in their commercial transactions to trammel the latter with debts, from which they can rarely afterwards extricate themselves.
1840, Robert Mudie, China And Its Resources[59], London, page 134:
but the vast number of official persons, and their perfect subordination to each other, and the subordination of the whole to the Emperor, show how very complete the despotism is, and consequently how trammelled must be the whole system of Chinese society.
1857 May 23, "Acorn", “Matilda Heron at the Boston Theatre”, in “The Spirit of the Times”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), volume 27, page 170:
Miss Heron does not tramel her movements, gestures, or action on the stage, by any fixed or rigid rules of art, but is rather governed by the impulse of her woman’s nature, therefore does some things that are faultless, then again will do others that are mediocre only, if measured by art rules.
1945, Judge Rifkind, United States v. National Lead Company et al.[60]:
Judicial intervention to break up a combination in restraint of trade is not in itself a restraint of trade, although for a time the established channels of commerce may be disarranged. To prohibit adherence to conspiratorial trade restraints hampers trade in about the same way that the prohibition against the circulation of counterfeit money hampers it. It may prevent the consummation of a particular transaction but in the long run it frees business from private regimentation and secures it against those who would trammel it.
1964, Wilderness Act:
A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.
1979, United Steelworkers of America v. Weber, 443 U.S. 193:
At the same time, the plan does not unnecessarily trammel the interests of white employees, neither requiring the discharge of white workers and their replacement with new black hirees, nor creating an absolute bar to the advancement of white employees since half of those trained in the program will be white.
1984, G. A. Greb, G. W. Johnson, “A history of strategic arms limitations”, in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, volume 40, number 1, →DOI, pages 30–37:
The insight extends into the complex web of internal bureaucratic interests that trammel the negotiating efforts of the United States and the Soviet Union.
1682, An Inventory of the Lands, Cattle Chattles, goods & moueables of Thomas Spencer[61], Kittery, Maine:
It one Iron pott fyre pann pott hookes & tramell 10s Chayrs & Table 10s.
1759, Inventory of the estate of Elizabeth Vergoose[62], Boston:
2 Spits 1 Pr. Tongs 1 Shovel & 1 Trammel: 5s. 4d.
1854, William Stuart, Sketches of the Life of William Stuart[63], Bridgeport, page 15:
I passed to the roaring fire to warm me, and there hung a pot upon a trammel in which a large fat goose was roasting for supper.
1871, Thomas Arad, Pioneer history of Orleans County, New York[64], Albion, NY, page 40:
To a cross pole over the fire place, kettles were suspended by wooden or iron hooks; often by an instrument called a trammel, which was a flat iron bar filled with holes, hanging from the pole, on which a kettle suspended on a hook, might be raised or lowered at pleasure, by moving the hook from one hole to another.
1876, Horace P. Biddle, (Please provide the book title or journal name)[65], Philadelphia, pages 41–42:
On high they placed a chimney-pole, On which the trammel hung, With hook and slide and many a hole To gauge the height it swung. They sometimes used a wooden crane Made of a sapling’s crotch, To which they hung a piece of chain, Or wooden hook with notch.
1881, Ellen Chapman Hobbs Rollins, Old-Time Child-Life[66], Philadelphia, page 63:
The great fireplace where the old toper had warmed his cider, and I had popped seedcorn after he was gone, had been bricked up. There used to be a crane in it with hooks, and a trammel. The trammel was a bar full of holes, by which the hooks were let down to suit the bails of pots.
1896, Rowland E. Robinson, In New England Fields and Woods[67], Boston, page 241:
It was not uncommon to draw the huge back-logs on to the hearth with a horse, and sometimes a yoke of oxen were so employed. [...] It was the next remove from a camp-fire. [...] the great samp-kettle bubbled and seethed on its trammel, and the forgotten johnny-cake scorched on its tilted board.
1957, Edwin Tunis, (Please provide the book title or journal name)[68], Cleveland, page 38:
Before the seventeenth century was out, an adjustable pothook called a trammel had been introduced. The best way to describe a trammel is to draw it. The teeth on the edge of the lower rod hung on swinging stirrups attached to the upper rod, giving a wide choice of lengths.
1980, Robert William Miller, Pictorial guide to early American tools and implements[69], Des Moines, Iowa, pages 56–57:
The trammel, a pothook made of two sections of iron, allowed the cook to adjust the height of the pots and kettles in the hearth. The lug pole trammel shown here could be extended to more than five feet, indicating that it was used in a large fireplace. [...] The sawtooth trammel and the chain trammel both hung from hooks in the hearth and both were adjustable to the housewife’s liking. Pots or kettles hung from the bottom hook.
2020, Paul Wood, “The Country General Store, Part II”, in The Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association, Inc.[70], volume 73, number 2, pages 59-79:
Fireplace cookware with bail handles were hung over the fire from trammels. A trammel hung from a fireplace crane and was adjustable so the height of a hanging pot, kettle, or griddle above the fire could be controlled to provide just the right amount of heat. Wrought iron trammels were made by a local blacksmith. The sawtooth trammel was kept at the desired height by a pawl that engaged one of the teeth and the chain trammel by a hook that engaged one of the chain links
1590, Edmund Spenser, chapter 2.2, in The faerie queene[72], page 209:
She led him vp into a goodly bowre, And comely courted with meet modestie, Ne in her speach, ne in her hauiour, Was lightnesse seene, or looser vanitie, But gratious womanhood, and grauitie, Aboue the reason of her youthly yeares: Her golden lockes she roundly did vptye In breaded tramels, that no looser heares Did out of order stray about her daintie eares.
1592, Thomas Lodge, “Anthenors item, to all young Gentlemen”, in Euphues Shadow[73]:
Like wanton bird exempt from fowlers charme, I soard aloft but looking from aboue. I saw on earth a Fowler heauenly faire, That made hir nets the trammels of hir haire.
1594, Thomas Nashe, The Terrors of the night[74], London, page Giij:
Their haire they ware loose vnrowled about their shoulders, whose dangling amber trammells reaching downe beneath their knees, seemed to drop baulme on their delicious bodies; and euer as they moou’d too and fro, with their light windye wauings, wantonly to correct their excuisite mistresses.
If it be sinne to loue a sweet-fac’d Boy, (Whose amber locks trust up in golden tramels Dangle adowne his louely cheekes with ioy, When pearle and flowers his faire haire enamels) If it be sinne to loue a louely Lad; Oh then sinne I, for whom my soule is sad.
1597, Christopher Marlowe, “translation of Ovid’s Elegia XIV”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)[76]:
When they were slender, and like downy mosse They troubled haires, alas, endur’d great losse. How patiently hot Irons they did take In crooked trannels crispy curles to make. I cryed tis sinne, tis sinne, these haires to burne They well become thee, then to spare them turne.
1597, Richard Johnson, chapter 3, in The second Part of the famous History of the seauen Champions of Christendome[77], London, pages D3–D4:
they left my Father fast bound unto the trée, and like egregious vipers tooke me by the tramells of my golden haire, and dragd me like a silly Lambe vnto this slaughtering place, intending to satisfie their lustes with the flower of my chastitie. [...] This being said, they bound mee with the tramells of myne owne haire to this Orenge trée, and at the very instant they proffered to defile my unspotted bodie, but by the mercifull working of God, you happily approached, & not only redéemed mée from their tyrannous desires, but quit the world from thrée of the wickedest creatures that euer nature framed
1599, L. A. (translator), The Eighth Booke of the Myrror of Knighthood[78], page E4:
Shée fell in a traunce, and twise or thrise lost the motion of her mouing powers, and at length recouering her selfe, and seeing the thrée Princes, for her sake with such remorselesse sauadgenesse slaine, tearing the golden tramels of her amber haire, whose bewtie eclipsed Apollos light, thus she began her lament.
Farewell bright sunne though lightner of all eies thou falst to giue a brighter beame to rise. Each tree and shrub were tramels of thy haire, But these are wiers for none but kings to weare,
1609, anonymous author, The Famous & renowned History of Morindos a King of Spaine[80], page B2:
Being no sooner finished, & the fatall table auoided, but both heaven and earth, land & sea, as it were gaue echoes of terror: hell it selfe seemd to tremble, and spewed vp corrupted fauors, & from her fiery furnaces, cast abroad such sparckling flames, yt even the imbrodered vestures beset with goldsmiths workmanship, so gorgeously beautifiing her bodie, were fiered, and the golden tramels of her haire, burnd from her head: notwithstanding all this nothing amazed the shameles minde of Miracola, nor any way affrighted her wt the teror of heavens wrath, for ye thirst of promotiõ so bewitched her, ambitious pride so inchanted her, and the desire of a diadem so imboldned her, that thinking both crown and kingdom her asurance for ever, by ye false promises of hel;
1611, John Florio, Queen Anna’s new World of words, or dictionarie of the Italian and English tongues[81], page 290:
Lucignóli [...] Also sliding-knots, curlings, or entrammelings of haires and ribands enterlaced together as women weare on their heads.
A vale of mist her silver brow did hide, The golden trammels of her hair were tied In fillets of black clouds, and with sad look She, mourner-like, to Heaven her journey took.
1636, William Sampson, “iii.1”, in The vow breaker[83]:
His knotty curles, like to Apollo’s tramells Neatly are display’d;
1638, Sir Thomas Herbert, Some yeares travels into divers parts of Asia and Afrique[84]:
They are transcendent Idolaters, carving Gods to worship, after the shapes of Pan, Priapus, and other gotish fancies, yea and in postures not to bee remembred: they have Groves and Altars also, whereon they offer flesh, fruits, flowers; and many times when the Tallapoi tells them the Devil is melancholy, they warble out harmonious musick, and do what they can to make him merry: others (so sonne as Aurora shewes her golden Trammell) runne to their Pagods with a basket of Ryce to be his breakfast, hoping there by to prosper that day the happier.
The Description of Women. Whose head befringed with be-scattered tresses, Shews like Apolloes, when the Morn he dresses: Or like Aurora when with Pearl she sets Her long dischevell’d Rose-crown’d Trammelets:
1647, Robert Baron, Erotopaignion, or, The Cyprian academy[86], page 66:
he thē thrust his glittering sword into his left side & having enloosed his helmet (intending to crop him shorter by the head) espyed golden tramells of faire haire, falling downe upon her shoulders, which witnessed that it was the beautious Arbella, whose corall lips trembled as if they were kissing death, the Lillie and rose which were before united in her cheekes now broake their league, and commenced warr
1669, Alexander Browne, Ars Pictoria[87], London, page 86:
Having done the fainter or lighter shades, and somewhat smoothed and wrought them into the red, you may go over the hair, disposing into such forms, folds or tramels, as may become your Picture best.
1611, John Florio, Queen Anna’s new World of words, or dictionarie of the Italian and English tongues[88], page 577:
Trecciáre, to plaite, to tie, to tramell, or roule up in tresses as womens haires are. Tréccie, plaits, tresses or tramels of haire, a womans tresses of haires. Trecciuóli, tramels, traps, filets, ribands, or hairelaces to tie up haires.
Those impes that with their charms, Woo’d wife Ulysses to his harmes. The rude sea growes civill at their song, And ra’visht stars shoot madly from their sphears To hear their musick. Great Thetis train, That on the shores do plain, And trammell up their sea-green haire.
1880, Edward Dobson,, The Practical brick and tile book[90]:
Where work is to be cut to receive inverted arches, such as the bottom half of a wheel arch, and also cores to receive any other arches, it is much best to fox trammels. These are fixed to the centre, and struck with the same radius as the arch. For the wheel arch, when it passes throughout the thickness of the wall, it is usual to fix an upright piece of wood on each side of the wall, and pass a bar of either wood or iron from one to the other; this will answer as a centre for the trammel to swing round upon, either on one side of the wall or the other.
1882, Anson Kittredge, The metal worker pattern book[91]:
A coarser instrument, and one especially designed for use upon metal, is shown in Fig. 117, and is called a trammel. [...] A heavier stick is used with it than with the beam compasses, and no other adjustment is provided than that which is afforded by clamping against the stick.
1914, C. Leslie Browne, The Fitting and Erecting of Engines[92], Manchester, page 47:
As a trammel is a good deal used for transferring measurements of large dimensions, the point is worth considering. If a pair of ordinary trammels are put upon the ordinary wooden bar and rest with their points upon a surface, it will be found that the points can be brought nearer together by bowing the bar upwards in the center of its length, and that the points can be made to move outwards by causing the bar to sag downwards in its center.
1994, Gerard C. J. Lynch, Brickwork: History, Technology and Practice, volume 2, page 9:
Setting out a circular projection: [...] The trammel is a long board up to a maximum length of 2m [...] and about 75mm wide and 12mm thick.[...] A steel rod is set into concrete perfectly plumb at the center of the circle of which the wall is an arc [...] The trammel is then threaded down the rod and the width of concrete foundations and thickness of wall is accurately marked on the upper face. By rotating the trammel, the lines of the foundations can be clearly set out ready for excavation and concreting.
1989, Paper Session II-C - Optical Alignment Measurements of Space Shuttle Tiles[93]:
In order to maintain an efficient aerodynamic Shuttle surface the 30,000 ceramic tiles that protect the vehicles during re-entry must be wll aligned. [...] An even matching of tile heights (zero step) is desired. [...] and dial-indicator trammel tools were used to measure step heights.
1733, Edward Oakley, “I.2 Prob. 18. To describe an Elliptick Arch by the Tramel, the Length and Height being given.”, in The Magazine of Architecture, Perspective & Sculpture[94], Westminster, page 4:
Operation. Fix the Head of the Tramel A B, on the length of the arch K L, and the pencil point g, at the point K, and the pins f & e in the grooves A B & i C, with one hand move the pencil g, and with the other guide the pins f, & e, in their respective grooves, till the pencil g comes to L, which will describe the required arch K H L.
It is hardly necessary to mention that mechanical instrument, the Trammel, used by artificers to describe ellipses.
1788, Thomas Skaife, A key to civil architecture[96], London:
An elliptick may be struck with a trammel for a rough arch; but the most exact and best method is to divide half the width and the height into any number of equal parts, and draw intersection of lines, which will form the arch desired
1768, “Ellipsographs”, in The Encyclopaedia Britannica[97], volume 8, page 370:
The most simple and most widely used instruments for drawing ellipses such as are required in ordinary drawing office practice is the elliptic trammel
1895, Harris, (Please provide the book title or journal name)[98]:
To draw the curve of an ellipse by means of a paper trammel
1967, The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton[99], volume 7, page 394, note 110:
Newton had encountered this trammel construction of the ellipse in his undergraduate reading of Liber IV of Schooten’s Exercitationum Mathematicarum Libre Quinque and he subsequently made elegant application of it both in Problem 4 of his ‘Problems for constructing aequations’ and in the corresponding portion of the appendix to his ‘Arithmetica Universalis’ to construct the real roots of general cubic and quartic equations by determining the intersections of the described ellipse with a given circle.
1983, R. Boxall, Construction drawing for technicians: Level 1[100], London:
On a suitable straight edged strip of paper (the trammel), mark off the lengths AO and BO with O being a common point to both. 3. Place the trammel onto the axes such that point A is on the minor axis and point B on the major. Mark off point O and move the trammel round keeping A and B on their respective axes, and marking the position of point O. The points made by O are points on the ellipse which can now be joined with a smooth curve
The result is a representation of an ellipse which is quite practical, but comparison with a true ellipse, constructed by trammelling and shown by a dotted line in Fig. 16, illustrates that the major axis measurement is fractionally short, and the minor axis measurement is fractionally long.
The manner of setting and truing the pin is as follows: [...] by means of an iron trammel or sweep, H, [...] to sweep upon the face of the outside chill of the wheel, by the turning of which I ascertain when the pin is set true.
1919, Lacey H. Morrison, Oil Engines[104], London, page 123:
The simplest method of marking the dead-centers is to use a steel trammel having both ends pointed.
1943, John Russell, “Millstones in Wind and Water Mills”, in Transactions of the Newcomen Society, volume 24, number 1, →DOI, pages 55–64:
To set the spindle vertical a trammel termed a “jack stick” is placed on the upper part of the spindle every time the stone is dressed
2006, George C. Patton, “Bascule Leaf Fabrication and Erection Tolerances: Where Structure Meets Machine”, in Heavy Movable Structures, Inc. Eleventh Biennial[105]:
The racks can be accurately located to the center of the trunnion in the shop using a combination of a trammel and optical survey instruments. A trammel is a device that attaches to the end of the trunnion shaft and contains a pointer at a radial distance from the trunnion axis equal to the rack pitch radius. The instrument is used to check the position of the rack pitch line by pivoting the trammel about the trunnion shaft and comparing the pointer to the pitch line inscribed on the outside face of the racks. Dial indicator gages can also be mounted to the frame to track parallelism of rack.
2012, Miloud Ouadi, Sustainable Energy from Paper Industry Wastes, PhD thesis, Aston University:
The feedstock was then further screened by a trammel screen to remove soil and earth.
1989, C. R. Hurburgh, Carl J. Bern, Thomas J. Brumm, “Efficiency of rotary grain cleaners in dry corn”, in Transactions of the ASAE[106], volume 32, number 6, pages 2073-2077:
Rotary grain cleaners separate grain into size fractions by moving it through a trammel (revolving cylindrical screen with axis slightly inclined).
2017, (Please provide the book title or journal name)[107]:
The material may be obtained from a material feed system 1 based on a fresh inoculation system or a trammel (a rotating cylindrical sieve or screen) and delivered as a loose material.
(Can we date this quote?), (Please provide the book title or journal name)[108]:
The spring B is intended to be wound up and furnish the motive power to propel the gearing and trammel for some little time, thus obviating the necessity of churning by manual power.
