ppl. a. [f. prec. + -ED1.] Bounded, limited, restricted, restrained, shut up, enclosed, imprisoned, etc.: see the verb.
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas (1641). Assigning each a fit confined Sitting.
1644. H. Parker, Jus Pop., 37. A lord may have a more confined power over his slave, than he has over himself.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe (1840), I. xiv. 232. Had … Providence … blessed me with confined desires.
1771. Contemplative Man, I. 2. I shall therefore be very short and confin’d in what I am going to say.
1796. C. Marshall, Garden., iii. (1813), 30. Trees … planted in a confined space.
1878. Huxley, Physiogr., 89. The elastic force of the confined air.
absol. 1790. Pennant, Lond. (1813), 302. The Spinhuis where the confined sit under the eye of a matron spinning or sewing.
1836. Dickens, Sk. Boz (1866), 23. In visiting the confined.
b. Of the bowels: constipated.
1834. Good, Study Med. (ed. 4), I. 195. When the bowels are loose in youth, they commonly become confined in advanced life.
1872. Sir T. Watson, Princ. & Pract. Physic (ed. 5), II. 866. His bowels are irregular, often confined.
c. Confined man, laborer (Lincolnsh.): one hired by the year, and so confined to work for the master who has hired him.
1868. Gainsburgh News, 27 June. A confined labourer, a married man who can clip sheep and work on a farm.
1886. Cole, S. W. Linc. Gloss., Confined man,—‘He was confined man at Aubur, and would like to get a confined place again.’
1888. Daily News, 20 July, 3/7. There are in Lincolnshire a numerous body of ‘confined labourers.’
Hence Confinedly adv.; Confinedness, state or quality of being confined.
1639. W. Sclater, Worthy Commun., 36. The confinednesse of his finite humane Nature to one place.
1644. Digby, Nat. Bodies, ix. (1658), 79. The limitation and confinedness of every magnitude unto just what it is.
1685. H. More, Paralip. Prophet., 405. [Applied] confinedly to these Elders.
a. 1761. Hoadly, Lett., liii. (R.).
c. 1802. Lamb, Life & Lett. (1837), I. 214. The beauties of Nature, as they have been confinedly called.
Mod. The confinedness of the site.
