Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary - bind over

If someone is bound over by a court or a judge, they are given an order and must do as the order says for a particular period of time. (LEGAL) On many occasions demonstrators were bound over to keep the peace... They put us in a cell, and the next day some bumbling judge bound us over... This imposes a duty on courts to bind over parents when they have no control over their children. PHRASAL VERB: be V-ed P to-inf, V n P, V P n (not pron), also V P n to-inf