A “fetter” (FET-ur) – related to the Middle English for “foot” – is a chain or shackle for the feet. “To fetter” is to restrain or confine.
Example (as used by Robert Coover in Ghost Town): “Only his hands have any action left in them. He uses them, struggling against the torpor that fetters him, to raise his rifle barrel and shoot the man in the floppy hat.”
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Copyright ETR, LLC, 2008
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