To fasten, bind, restrain, or fetter with a chain or chains: as, to chain floating logs together; to chain a dog; to chain prisoners.
Figuratively
To unite firmly; link.
To hold by superior force, moral or physical; keep in bondage or slavery; enthrall; enslave.
To restrain; hold in check; control.
To block up or obstruct with a chain, as a passage or the entrance to a harbor.
noun.
A connected series of links of metal or other material, serving the purposes of a band, cord, rope, or cable in connecting, confining, restraining, supporting, drawing, transmitting mechanical power, etc., or for ornamental purposes.
noun.
Figuratively, that which binds, confines, restrains, fetters, or draws; specifically, in the plural, fetters; bonds; bondage; slavery: as, bound by the chains of evil habit.
noun.
In surveying, a measuring instrument, generally consisting of 100 links, each 7.92 inches (see Gunter's chain, below), or, as commonly in the United States, one foot, in length.
noun.
In weaving, the warp-threads of a web: so called because they form a long series of links or loops.
noun.
A series of things, material or immaterial, linked together; a series, line, or range of things connected or following in succession; a concatenation or coördinate sequence: as, a chain of causes, events, or arguments; a chain of evidence; a chain of mountains or of fortifications.
noun.
In chem., a group of atoms of the same kind assumed to be joined to one another by chemical force without the intervention of atoms of a different kind.
noun.
pl. Naut., strong bars or plates of iron bolted at the lower end to the ship's side, and at the upper end secured to the iron straps of the wooden blocks called deadeyes, by which the shrouds supporting the masts are extended. Formerly, instead of bars, chains were used; hence the name. Same as chain-plates.
noun.
Synonyms See shackle.
noun.
A ruff of recurved feathers adorning the neck of some breeds of pigeons, such as the jacobin.
noun.
An abbreviation of mountain-chain and volcanic chain.
noun.
A collection or continuum which has reference to a certain mode of correspondence such that no one individual or point corresponds to more than one individual or point, this mode of correspondence being thought of as a sort of mapping such that one part of the map may coincide with another, but no part of the collection or continuum mapped is represented twice over on the map.