Restraining

How to spell restraining

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce restraining

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does restraining mean?

1. verbHolding someone or something back, or keeping it under control.

Restraining in a sentence

• The security staff were restraining the angry customer near the exit.

• She had trouble restraining her laughter during the dull meeting.

Where does restraining come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb stringere, which literally meant 'to draw tight', 'to bind', or 'to press together'. That root passed into Old French as restreindre, meaning 'to hold back' or 'to limit', combining the prefix re- (here adding the sense of 'back') with the tightening sense of stringere. English adopted the verb 'restrain' in the 1300s, and 'restraining' is simply its present participle, used both as a verb form and as an adjective. The same stringere root sits inside a whole family of relatives, including 'strict', 'stringent', 'constrain', and 'string', all of which share the idea of tightness or binding. The spelling trap is the quiet single 's' followed by 'tr', plus the 'ai' vowel in 'strain', which can tempt writers toward 'restraning' or 'restrayning'.

How the word is built

• re- (back)
• strain (from Latin stringere: to draw tight)
• -ing (present participle/adjective suffix)