1. A reference to an attempt to produce uniformity or conformity by heavy-handed and arbitrary means: As the supervisor, Irwin used a procrustean manner and reasoning to make his subordinates comply with his company's standards.
2. Relating to a process of trying to establish strict requirements by using any and all means possible, including violence: Cornelia left the company because she felt that its working standards and the treatment of its employees were too procrustean.

Harris warned his fellow workers that the new manager tended to use procrustean methods to enforce uniformity even if it meant employees could lose their jobs.

3. Etymology: from Greek Prokroustes, "one who stretches" from prokrouein, "to beat, to hammer out, to stretch out"' from pro-, "before" + krouein, "to strike, to beat, to push."

Used in a figurative sense of "aiming to produce conformity by arbitrary means".

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A standard, doctrine, theory, or rule that is enforced uniformly without regard to individual differences by violently eliminating all other alternative viewpoints: "When Brock hired new employees for his company, he presented his procrustean rules or procrustean standards which he expected them to follow."

"Syria is just one example of a regime's procrustean tactics designed to completely eliminate any political dissent."

In programming, a fixed-length string.: "If a string value is too long for the allocated space, it is truncated (made shorter) to fit; and if it is shorter, the empty space is usually padded with space characters."