verb
definition
To force physically, by strong persuasion or pressuring; to compel; to oblige.
definition
To keep within close bounds; to confine.
definition
To reduce a result in response to limited resources.
adjective
definition
Kept within close bounds; confined.
definition
Forced; compelled.
Examples of constrained in a Sentence
He snatched two more oranges before the magic constrained his movement.
In 1752, constrained to secure some position in the world, he accepted a tutorship in a family resident in Livonia, but only retained it a few months.
Could our modern freemasons continue to hide their watchwords and ritual, or even make a pretence of doing so, if they were constrained by public opinion to initiate every child three years of age?
They were, as Milton said, " faithful and freeborn Englishmen and good Christians constrained to forsake their dearest home, their friends, and kindred, whom nothing but the wide ocean and the savage deserts of America could hide and shelter from the fury of the bishops."
Palaeologus, had been advised by his experienced father to avoid all serious negotiations, as they had invariably resulted in increased bitterness; but John, in view of the rapid dismemberment of his empire by the Turks, felt constrained to seek a union.
When the United States found that bribing the pirate Barbary states did not secure exemption from their outrages, and was constrained at last to use force, he served against Algiers and Tunis.
For some years the emperor, with his sound common-sense and dislike of exaggeration, held the balance fairly between the two extremes; but long years of uninterrupted labour, anxiety and disappointment weakened his zeal for reform, and when radicalism assumed more and more the form of secret societies and revolutionary agitation, he felt constrained to adopt severe repressive measures.
Wall trees, it must be evident, are placed in a very unnatural and constrained position, and would in fact soon be reduced to a state of utter confusion if allowed to grow unrestricted; hence the following modes of training have been adopted.
At Dunbar Leslie held Cromwell in the hollow of his hand, but his army had been repeatedly " purged " of all Royalist men of the sword by the preachers; they are said, and Cromwell believed it, to have constrained Leslie to leave his impregnable position and attack on the lower levels.
The pilgrimage thither must have attained great importance as early as the 15th century; for the popes of the Renaissance found themselves constrained to erect an imposing pilgrim church above the "Holy House."
Their power steadily grew until Radi (934-941) was constrained to hand over most of the royal functions to Mahommed b.
Hence a rigid body not constrained in any way is said to have six degrees of freedom.
That this ratio should be less than unity agrees with the theory of constrained types already given.
Private sector investment is severely constrained by limited returns on products for markets with low purchasing power.
However, she could not now forbear; for the love of Christ constrained her.
In order that a kinematic chain may be made the basis of a mechanism, every point in any link of it must be completely constrained with regard to every other link.
In many New England communities a majority in the churches of the standing order bitterly opposed the new evangelism, and those who came under its influence felt constrained to organize "Separate" or "New Light" churches.
The fortress, constructed in 1789, successfully withstood a siege by Aga Mahommed of Persia in 1795, but was constrained to surrender two years afterwards.
But the absence of troops on the Finnish border, and the bad condition of the frontier fortresses, constrained the empress to listen to Gustavus's pacific assurances, and stay her hand.
For this very reason the Sassanid Empire was the more constrained to champion Zoroastrianism.
In 1476 Mahomet again invaded Moldavia, but, though successful in the open field, the Turks were sorely harassed by Stephen's guerilla onslaughts, and, being thinned by pestilence, were again constrained to retire.
On the accession of Constantine Ypsilanti (1802-6) in Walachia, and of Alexander Murusi (1802-6) in Moldavia, the Porte was constrained to issue a new hattisherif by which every prince was to hold his office for at least seven years, unless the protec- Porte satisfied the Russian minister that there were good and sufficient grounds for his deposition.
Bratianu wrote with some truth that the Great Powers by sacrificing Rumania were able to obtain more concessions for themselves from Russia, and Lord Beaconsfield was constrained to admit that " in politics ingratitude is often the reward of the greatest services.
Indeed, Bury is constrained to admit that the view of Semon and others may be correct, and that these so-called calycinal systems may not be heirlooms from a calyculate ancestor, but may have been independently developed in the various classes owing to the action of similar causes.
For some years he was constrained to take a minor part in politics, only emerging occasionally to make violent and unwise protests against peace with France.
Calvin was in his twenty-eighth year when he was thus constrained to settle at Geneva; and in this city the rest of his life, with the exception of a brief interval, was spent.
An attempt was made by Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto (1477-1547), bishop of Carpentras, to take advantage of this so as to restore the papal supremacy in that district; but this design Calvin, at the request of the Bernese authorities, who had been consulted by those of Geneva, completely frustrated, by writing such a reply to the letter which the bishop had addressed to the Genevese, as constrained him to desist from all further efforts.
To this petition Ambrose replied in a letter to Valentinian, arguing that the devoted worshippers of idols had often been forsaken by their deities; that the native valour of the Roman soldiers had gained their victories, and not the pretended influence of pagan priests; that these idolatrous worshippers requested for themselves what they refused to Christians; that voluntary was more honourable than constrained virginity; that as the Christian ministers declined to receive temporal emoluments, they should also be denied to pagan priests; that it was absurd to suppose that God would inflict a famine upon the empire for neglecting to support a religious system contrary to His will as revealed in the Scriptures; that the whole process of nature encouraged innovations, and that all nations had permitted them, even in religion; that heathen sacrifices were offensive to Christians; and that it was the duty of a Christian prince to suppress pagan ceremonies.
He didn't think the memory was enough of a punishment for taking the life of an innocent human, but he was constrained again by the primary mission of the Guardians to protect humanity against evil, deserving or not.
The b usiness of a Special General Meeting shall b usiness of a Special General Meeting shall be constrained to the matter or matters put in the request.
William acknowledged that he had been constrained by ecclesiastical censure to make peace with Byland.
A further design question is to reconsider whether and how different activities should be spatially constrained.
The scope of the poetry is not, however, constrained by geographical or even earthly boundaries.
True MORB values and perhaps upper mantle geochemistry can be constrained only by considering data untainted by plume asthenosphere.
With two sections of single line and a busy mainline in between pathing is very constrained.
The Inspection Manager is no longer constrained to areas that can be easily reached by conventional means.
Our review of treatments for opiate misusers in a primary care setting was constrained by resources (time, staff ).
I think I'm just constrained by the rules of diplomatic nicety not to make an announcement on behalf of the Indian government.
The properties available for analysis are constrained by the set of actions that remain globally observable.
The columns T are constrained to be mutually orthogonal.
They function on the principle of constrained maximization of the Shannon entropy, which produces the most statistically probable solution consistent with the constraints.
N. Mtetwa and L.S. Smith, Precision constrained stochastic resonance in a feedforward neural network.
Details of article The effects of constrained movement on fission-fusion sociality in Colombian black spider monkeys (Ateles fusciceps robustus) by Samantha Coleman.
One way of doing this was to make a homogenous trellis constrained code by forcing the parity bits to be identical.
Listeners find tropes easy to understand precisely because much of their thinking is constrained by figurative processes.
He was essentially an amiable man, who hated the zeal for an impossible orthodoxy that constrained "the church to institute a search after crimes which have not betrayed an existence, yea, and to drag into open contentions those who are meditating no evil."
The movable coil of the wattmeter is normally suspended so that its axis is at right angles to that of the fixed coil and is constrained by the torsion of a spiral spring.
He discouraged the king's advances, showed reluctance to go to the palace, and seemed constrained when there.
The fact that Rice was unduly optimistic and allowed the enterprises of the Convention to become almost hopelessly involved in debt, and was constrained to use some of the fund collected for missions to meet the exigencies of his educational and journalistic work, intensified the hostility of those who had suspected from the beginning the good faith of the agents and denied the scriptural authority of boards, paid agents, paid missionaries, &c. So virulent became the opposition that in several states, as Tennessee and Kentucky, the work of the Convention was for years excluded, and a large majority in each association refused to receive into their fellowship those who advocated or contributed to its objects.
But when Augustine is concerned to reconcile the reality of individual freedom with humanity's universal need of redemption and with the absolute voluntariness of Divine Grace, he is constrained to contradict most of those postulates of which in his advocacy of libertarianism he was an eager champion.