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Procrustean

[ proh-kruhs-tee-uh n ]

/ proʊˈkrʌs ti ən /

SEE SYNONYMS FOR Procrustean ON THESAURUS.COM

adjective

pertaining to or suggestive of Procrustes.

(often lowercase) tending to produce conformity by violent or arbitrary means.

Origin of Procrustean

First recorded in 1840–50; Procruste(s) + -an

Example sentences from the Web for procrustean

But they had no right to tyrannise over others, and tie them down to their own procrustean bed.

Mary Barton |Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
It is revealed as the Procrustean bed which cramps us up until we ache inside.

Nonsenseorship |G. G. Putnam and Others
They are too often broken outright on the Procrustean bed; they are probably always disfigured.

Familiar Studies of Men and Books |Robert Louis Stevenson
To him the judicial office was a Procrustean one of fitting each case to the legal bed, if necessary by a surgical operation.

An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law |Roscoe Pound

Iron-bound, impersonal ethics, the procrustean bed of rules, he soon saw at their true value as the deification of averages.

Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin |Robert Louis Stevenson

British Dictionary definitions for procrustean

Procrustean

/ (prəʊˈkrʌstɪən) /

adjective

tending or designed to produce conformity by violent or ruthless methods