restrictio

Restrictio is a Latin noun meaning the act of restraining, limiting, or confining. In Latin, the verb restringere means to bind back or tighten, and restrictio operates as the nominal form of constraint or limitation. In English-language scholarship, the term is usually translated as restriction or, in some contexts, restraint.

Historically, restrictio occurs in legal and rhetorical texts to denote imposed limits on rights, property, or obligations. In Roman and late antique legal sources, restrictions were framed as limitations established by statutes, contracts, or decrees. In scholastic philosophy, it sometimes referred to the process of narrowing a term's predicational scope, that is, confining a concept to a defined class, an idea akin to a specification rather than a broad generalization.

In modern usage, restrictio is rarely used as a technical term in English outside translations or discussions of Latin sources. Contemporary scholars typically employ English terms such as restriction, limitation, or restrictive clause. When encountered in Latin texts, restrictio is often glossed to indicate constraint on action, property, or conceptual extension, depending on the context. The term's significance thus lies largely in its historical and philological applications rather than as a standing modern doctrine.

See also: restriction (law), restrictive clause, Latin phrases relating to law and logic. For further reading, consult Latin dictionaries or studies of Roman law and medieval scholastic logic.