RESTRAINED

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does restrained mean? 

• RESTRAINED (adjective)
  The adjective RESTRAINED has 5 senses:

1. cool and formal in manner

2. under restraint

3. marked by avoidance of extravagance or extremes

4. not showy or obtrusive

5. prudent

  Familiarity information: RESTRAINED used as an adjective is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RESTRAINED (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cool and formal in manner

Synonyms:

restrained; reticent; unemotional

Similar:

undemonstrative (not given to open expression of emotion)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Under restraint

Similar:

close (strictly confined or guarded)

low-key; low-keyed; subdued (restrained in style or quality)

unexpansive (not given to high spirits or effusiveness)

Also:

controlled (restrained or managed or kept within certain bounds)

inhibited (held back or restrained or prevented)

reserved (marked by self-restraint and reticence)

Antonym:

unrestrained (not subject to restraint)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Marked by avoidance of extravagance or extremes

Synonyms:

moderate; restrained

Context example:

restrained in his response

Similar:

temperate (not extreme in behavior)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Not showy or obtrusive

Synonyms:

quiet; restrained

Context example:

clothes in quiet good taste

Similar:

unostentatious; unpretending; unpretentious (not ostentatious)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Prudent

Synonyms:

guarded; restrained

Context example:

guarded optimism

Similar:

cautious (showing careful forethought)

 Context examples 

That was my Indian Messalina's attribute: rooted disgust at it and her restrained me much, even in pleasure.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

So he restrained her withdrawing hand and started to walk on with her.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

This carbon uptake is restrained during winter, but increases to peak capacity in spring when snowmelt provides abundant water to trees.

(Earlier snowmelt decreases streamflow, reduces forests' ability to regulate atmospheric carbon dioxide, NSF)

Her eyes were red and swollen; and it seemed as if her tears were even then restrained with difficulty.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

The lion replied: “They have restrained themselves.”

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

He restrained himself however, and the little squall would have blown over, but for one unlucky word.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

It restrained him, opposed the will of him toward personal liberty.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

"What was the name of the man who took it?" asked Dr. Van Helsing with restrained eagerness.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

He perfectly understood this allusion to the considerations that had hitherto restrained me in my communications with him.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

For a long time I have thought that each post would bring this line, and my persuasions have restrained my uncle from undertaking a journey to Ingolstadt.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)