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CONSTRAINED
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Lacking spontaneity; not natural
Example:
a strained smile
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Similar:
affected; unnatural (speaking or behaving in an artificial way to make an impression)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Past simple / past participle of the verb constrain
Context examples:
Microfluidics deals with the behaviour and control of fluids in a constrained, typically sub-millimetre space.
(New approach promises better anaemia detection, SciDev.Net)
However, the biogeochemical cycle of barium, which is closely related to the carbon cycle, is not well constrained, being a mystery how barium precipitates in ocean waters.
(Researchers discover the oceanic precipitation mechanism for barium, which is a proxy for marine bacterial productivity, University of Granada)
Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn at once hung their shields over the side, and displayed their pennons as was the custom, noting with the keenest interest the answering symbols which told the names of the cavaliers who had been constrained by ill health or wounds to leave the prince at so critical a time.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He had vanity, which strongly inclined him in the first place to think she did love him, though she might not know it herself; and which, secondly, when constrained at last to admit that she did know her own present feelings, convinced him that he should be able in time to make those feelings what he wished.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Elinor advised her to lie down again, and for a moment she did so; but no attitude could give her ease; and in restless pain of mind and body she moved from one posture to another, till growing more and more hysterical, her sister could with difficulty keep her on the bed at all, and for some time was fearful of being constrained to call for assistance.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
By combining the variations in the timing of when a planet passes in front of its star (an event called a transit) with those transits observed by the Kepler space telescope, the team better constrained the planetary masses and dynamics of the system.
('Cotton Candy' Planet Mysteries Unravel in New Hubble Observations, NASA)
At length Darcy spoke, and in a constrained manner said, Mr. Wickham is blessed with such happy manners as may ensure his making friends—whether he may be equally capable of retaining them, is less certain.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
When they passed on, after we had exchanged a few words, she did not like to replace that hand, but, still appearing timid and constrained, walked by herself.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
That they were false, the general had learnt from the very person who had suggested them, from Thorpe himself, whom he had chanced to meet again in town, and who, under the influence of exactly opposite feelings, irritated by Catherine's refusal, and yet more by the failure of a very recent endeavour to accomplish a reconciliation between Morland and Isabella, convinced that they were separated forever, and spurning a friendship which could be no longer serviceable, hastened to contradict all that he had said before to the advantage of the Morlands—confessed himself to have been totally mistaken in his opinion of their circumstances and character, misled by the rhodomontade of his friend to believe his father a man of substance and credit, whereas the transactions of the two or three last weeks proved him to be neither; for after coming eagerly forward on the first overture of a marriage between the families, with the most liberal proposals, he had, on being brought to the point by the shrewdness of the relator, been constrained to acknowledge himself incapable of giving the young people even a decent support.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
She was so little equal to Rebecca's puddings and Rebecca's hashes, brought to table, as they all were, with such accompaniments of half-cleaned plates, and not half-cleaned knives and forks, that she was very often constrained to defer her heartiest meal till she could send her brothers in the evening for biscuits and buns.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
