bind

verb (past and past participle bound /bound/)

• 1tie or fasten (something) tightly:floating bundles of logs bound together with ropes the magician bound her wrists with a silk scarf
• restrain (someone) by the tying up of hands and feet:the raider then bound and gagged Mr. Glenn
• wrap (something) tightly:her hair was bound up in a towel
• bandage (a wound):he cleaned the wound and bound it up with a clean dressing she had bound his wounds with a poultice of herbs
• (be bound with) (of an object) be encircled by something, typically metal bands, in order to strengthen it:an ancient oak chest, bound with brass braces
• Linguistics (of a rule or set of grammatical conditions) determine the relationship between (coreferential noun phrases).

• 2cohere or cause to cohere in a single mass: [with object]:mix the flour with the coconut and enough egg white to bind them [no object]:clay is made up chiefly of tiny soil particles that bind together tightly
• cause (painting pigments) to form a smooth medium by mixing them with oil:use a white that is bound in linseed oil
• hold by chemical bonding:a protein in a form that can bind DNA
• [no object] (bind to) combine with (a substance) through chemical bonding:these proteins have been reported to bind to calmodulin

• 3cause (people) to feel united:the comradeship that had bound such a disparate bunch of young men together
• (bind someone to) cause someone to feel strongly attached to (a person or place):loosened the ties that had bound him to the university

• 4 formal impose a legal or contractual obligation on:a party who signs a document will normally be bound by its terms
• indenture (someone) as an apprentice:he was bound apprentice at the age of sixteen
• (bind oneself) formal make a contractual or enforceable undertaking:the government cannot bind itself as to the form of subsequent legislation
• secure (a contract), typically with a sum of money.
• (be bound by) be hampered or constrained by:Sarah did not want to be bound by a rigid timetable

• 5fix together and enclose (the pages of a book) in a cover:a small, fat volume, bound in red morocco

• 6trim (the edge of a piece of material) with a decorative strip:a ruffle with the edges bound in a contrasting color

• 7 Logic (of a quantifier) be applied to (a given variable) so that the variable falls within its scope.

  • For example, in an expression of the form ‘For every x, if x is a dog, x is an animal,’ the universal quantifier is binding the variable x

noun

• 1a problematical situation:he is in a political bind over the welfare issue

• 2 formal a statutory constraint:the moral bind of the law

• 3British Musicanother term for tie.

• 4another term for bine.