When a person is manacled, an iron ring on a chain has been locked around the wrist or the ankle — the old way of holding a prisoner so they cannot run. Those rings are manacles; manacled is what we say once they are on, about the person or about the wrists and ankles themselves. Police today more often use handcuffs: smaller, usually only for the hands. Manacles are the heavier picture — iron, a chain, wrists or ankles, sometimes both. You meet the word in history, in stories, and in talk about prisons. People also use it when there is no metal at all: someone “manacled by rules” or “manacled by debt” is held as tightly as if a chain were on them. Though actually, in careful talk the metal thing is the manacle, and manacled is only the -ed form, like chained or locked.

戴著手銬／腳鐐的；鐐銬