Cornered

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To find oneself in a position where options are severely restricted or limited, often resulting in a sense of entrapment or pressure
2. To be caught in a circumstance that offers no viable alternatives or means of escape, creating a feeling of being trapped
3. Forced into a situation with no way out and limited options, leading to a feeling of being confined

Etymology: The sense of being trapped that "cornered" carries today sits a long way from its anatomy. The noun "corner" comes from a Latin word for "horn," cornū, which meant a projecting point or end. That image passed into Old French as "corne," meaning both a horn and an angle, and English borrowed the angle sense through Anglo-Norman "cornere" in the Middle Ages. A cornered animal, pinned against the walls of a space with nowhere to go, is the picture behind the modern figure of speech. English also had a native word for the same idea. Old English "hyrne," from a Germanic root meaning "little horn," gave us the modern "hirn," a nook or corner, which is related to "horn" itself. Two lines of inheritance, one Latin-French and one Germanic, thus converged on the same concept of a sharp projecting point, and the French-derived form won out in everyday English. The verb is simply the past form of "corner," used here in its figurative sense of having one's options boxed in.

Synonyms: trapped, pinned, surrounded, hemmed, confined

Antonyms: free, released, liberated, open, unconfined