binding

BI'NDING, participle present tense Fastening with a band; confining; restraining; covering or wrapping; obliging by a promise or other moral tie; making costive; contracting; making hard or stiff. BI'NDING, adjective That obliges; obligatory; as the binding force of a moral duty or of a command. BI'NDING, noun The act of fastening with a band or obliging; a bandage; the cover of a book, with the sewing and accompanying work; any thing that binds; something that secures the edge of cloth. 1. In the art of defense, a method of securing or crossing the adversary's sword with a pressure, accompanied with a spring of the wrist. Binding-joists, in architecture, are the joists of a floor into which the trimmers of staircases, or well holes of the stairs and chimney ways, are framed.