[f. TRAMMEL sb.1]
† 1. trans. To bind up (a corpse). Obs.
1536. in Archæol., XVI. 23. (Funeral Q. Kath.) The Corps must be sered, tramayled, leded, and chested.
1546–7. in Strype, Eccl. Mem. (1721), II. App. A 3. (Funeral K. Hen. VIII.) Surely bound and trammel’d with cords of silk.
c. 1558. Leland’s Collect. (1770), V. 308. Whoo [Q. Mary] after her Departuer was … cered, and tramelled in this Manner.
2. intr. To use a trammel-net; trans. to take (fish or birds) with a trammel-net.
1588–1866. [see TRAMMELLING vbl. sb.].
1846. Bell’s Life, 9 Aug., 7/5. Four men were caught trammelling pheasants.
† 3. trans. To fasten together (the legs of a horse) with trammels (TRAMMEL sb.1 2); also, to put trammels on (a horse). Obs.
1607. Markham, Caval., IV. ix. (1617), 45. I would haue you in any case … to tramell your horse aboue knee. Ibid. (1610), Masterp., II. clix. 468. After you haue tramelled all his foure legges.
1639. T. de Gray, Compl. Horsem., 307. Tramell his fore-feet that he do not lye down.
4. fig. To entangle or fasten up as in a trammel.
1605. Shaks., Macb., I. vii. 3. If th’Assassination Could trammell vp the Consequence, and catch … Successe.
1819. Keats, Lamia, II. 52. How to entangle, trammel up, and snare Your soul in mine.
1906. Hibbert Jrnl., Jan., 304. Mind is never either mere antecedent or more consequent. It trammels up its before and hereafter.
5. fig. To hinder the free action of; to put restraint upon, fetter, hamper, impede, confine.
1727. Pope, Lett. to Gay, 6 Oct. 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.
1792. A. Young, Trav. France, 236. We are little better than horses in a team, trammelled to follow one another.
1807. E. S. Barrett, Rising Sun, II. 8. Till he had trammelled himself again with debts.
1865. Swinburne, Atalanta, 98. Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot.
1883. Ld. R. Gower, My Remin., I. i. 12. Like many great artists, when trammelled with a commission he seemed to lose power.
6. To fasten (a piece of work on the spindle of a lathe) with a clamp. rare.
1833. J. Holland, Manuf. Metal, II. vi. 134. The work must be trammelled to the nose of the spindle, by a contrivance called the dog and driver, the former being a sort of clutch, screwed upon the end of the work.
