Coarter

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. A person who restricts, confines, or limits the freedom of another, as in an archaic sense of compelling someone to act
2. Someone who constrains or narrows the actions or movements of others, a term found in older English writing
3. One who hems in or restricts another's liberty, used in older texts to describe a confiner or restrainer

Etymology: The verb comes from Latin "coartare," meaning to press together or squeeze into a narrow space. That Latin verb is built from "co-," meaning together, and "artare," to tighten, which in turn comes from "artus," meaning narrow or close-fitting. The physical sense of squeezing things into less room gave rise to the figurative sense of squeezing a person's liberty. The same root survives in medicine. "Coarctation" names an abnormal narrowing of a blood vessel, most often the aorta, and it is a close relative of this verb. Both words keep the original image of something pressed into too small a space.