tie one's hands

Prevent one from acting, as in I can't help you this time; my hands are tied by the club's rules. This metaphoric term transfers physical bondage to other kinds of constraint. It was first recorded in 1642.

Common Names:

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Irfan	-	Arabic
Hassan	['ha:sən]
Muhammad	mu-HAHM-mahd (Arabic)	Arabic, Urdu, Punjabi, Pashto, Bengali, Tajik, Indonesian, Malay
Joonas	YO:-nahs	Finnish
Osvaldo	-	Spanish, Italian, Portuguese
Tanvi	-	Indian, Hindi, Marathi