ppl. a. [f. CONSTRAIN v. + -ED.]
1. Of persons: Forced, acting under compulsion. Of actions, etc.: Brought about by compulsion.
1597. Daniel, Civ. Wares, IV. xxxix. This weake constrayned company.
1605. Shaks., Macb., V. iv. 13. None serue with him, but constrained things, Whose hearts are absent too.
1780. Cowper, Table Talk, 623. The mind, released from too constrained a nerve.
1871. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), IV. xx. 577. The breaking of a constrained oath.
2. Forced, as opposed to natural.
1571. Golding, Calvin on Ps. xxxv. 20. Bothe theis seeme unto mee to alledge constreyned senses.
1597. Morley, Introd. Mus., 7. Vnder Gam vt the voice seemed as a kinde of humming, and aboue E la a kinde of constrained skricking.
1693. Dryden, Ess. on Satire, Wks. 1821, XIII. 21. [Milton’s] ‘Juvenilia,’ where his rhyme is always constrained and forced, and comes hardly from him.
1763. Scrafton, Indostan, iii. (1770), 104. The Soubah … received him with a constrained graciousness.
1841. Elphinstone, Hist. Ind., I. 35. The constrained hospitality with which they are directed to prepare food … for a military man coming as a guest.
3. Of persons: Behaving under constraint, having the spontaneous and natural impulses checked, embarrassed.
1802. Mar. Edgeworth, Moral T. (1816), I. i. 3. Notwithstanding all his efforts to be and to appear at ease, he was constrained and abashed.
4. Forcibly or unnaturally confined (physically), cramped.
1768. W. Gilpin, Ess. Prints, 28. Every constrained posture [should be] avoided.
1842. Penny Cycl., XXII. 128/2. When very weary, we sleep even in the most constrained positions.
Mod. Tight dresses mean constrained limbs.
5. Dynamics. Forced to move in a certain course.
1856. Tait & Steele, Dynamics of Particle (1871), 386. A single particle subject to the action of any forces, and whose motion is either free, constrained, or resisted.
