: a cover or overgarment of strong material (such as canvas) used to bind the body and especially the arms closely in restraining a violent prisoner or patient
2
: something that restricts or confines like a straitjacket
Wearing a straitjacket, or any other equipment typically associated with the institutionalization of people with mental illness, trivializes that experience. Lizz Schumer, Good Housekeeping, 6 June 2022 Well, another idea of a good alternative materializes when Julia plots her escape from the straitjacket of the U.K. and her mother and that creep Ellery. Nathan Deuel, Los Angeles Times, 20 July 2022 The rules set up by international institutions have put us in a straitjacket. Tom Collins, Quartz, 6 June 2022 Davis threatened to put the inmate in a straitjacket but instead belly-chained J.B.’s wrists to his waist and shackled his ankles. Howard Koplowitz | Hkoplowitz@al.com, al, 25 May 2022 According to reports, Jonathan was hanging from his feet 40 feet in the air in a straitjacket. Selena Barrientos, Good Housekeeping, 1 Mar. 2022 Clad in a straitjacket, he was sandwiched between two cars suspended 70 feet in the air, which then burst into flames. Glenn Garner, PEOPLE.com, 21 Feb. 2022 The play didn’t extinguish the Clippers’ attempt to engineer a second consecutive escape out of a straitjacket of their own making.Los Angeles Times, 24 Jan. 2022 But with growth in his country slowing, demand slackening and debt still at near-record levels, Mr. Xi could face some of the biggest economic challenges since Deng Xiaoping began lifting the country out of its Maoist straitjacket four decades ago.New York Times, 16 Jan. 2022
Verb
Hip-hop from that period often incorporated sampling, a technique that was legally straitjacketed by 1991. Jeremy Gordon, New York Times, 3 May 2020 Trump was not straitjacketed by the laws and customs governing foundations, or by the most basic ethical norms. Steve Chapman, chicagotribune.com, 13 Nov. 2019 Europe is a tough regulatory landscape for big technology companies, with fines raining down on Google, a hefty back-tax bill for Apple, and the threat of new laws to straitjacket how online platforms handle their customers.Washington Post, 20 Sep. 2019 But this tick somehow fell into a spider web, and the resident spider promptly straitjacketed its arachnid cousin in loops of silk, either to save it as a snack or to immobilize it as a precaution.National Geographic, 25 May 2018 Critics over the years have accused Muti of straitjacketing the music in the name of fidelity to the score, but there was no rigidity of pacing or phrasing here. John Von Rhein, chicagotribune.com, 22 Aug. 2017 Highlights from previous eras, including the 1980s pinnacle of the Lakers-Celtics rivalry, look shrunken and straitjacketed in comparison. John Branch, New York Times, 25 Oct. 2016 This was long before the Corps of Engineers straitjacketed the once wide and slower-moving river. Darryl Levings, kansascity, 28 Apr. 2017 See More