To bind tightly together; to constrain or restrict severely, or in medicine, to cause astringency.
From Latin 'adstrictus,' past participle of 'adstringere' (to bind to, tighten). Used in Middle English for both legal binding and medical astringency.
Oddly, 'adstrict' lives on in medical jargon—when a doctor says an astringent substance is adstrictive, they're using a 2,000-year-old Roman word to describe how tannins tighten your skin.
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