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noun

Strait n. (pl. straits)

1.

A narrow pass or passage. "He brought him through a darksome narrow strait To a broad gate all built of beaten gold." "Honor travels in a strait so narrow Where one but goes abreast."

2.

Specifically: (Geog.) A (comparatively) narrow passageway connecting two large bodies of water; often in the plural; as, the strait, or straits, of Gibraltar; the straits of Magellan; the strait, or straits, of Mackinaw. "We steered directly through a large outlet which they call a strait, though it be fifteen miles broad."

3.

A neck of land; an isthmus. (R.) "A dark strait of barren land."

4.

Fig.: A condition of narrowness or restriction; doubt; distress; difficulty; poverty; perplexity; sometimes in the plural; as, reduced to great straits. "For I am in a strait betwixt two." "Let no man, who owns a Providence, grow desperate under any calamity or strait whatsoever." "Ulysses made use of the pretense of natural infirmity to conceal the straits he was in at that time in his thoughts."

verb

Strait v. t. To put to difficulties. (Obs.)

adjective

Strait adj. A variant of Straight. (Obs.)

Strait adj. (compar. straiter; superl. straitest)

1.

Narrow; not broad. "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." "Too strait and low our cottage doors."

2.

Tight; close; closely fitting.

3.

Close; intimate; near; familiar. (Obs.) "A strait degree of favor."

4.

Strict; scrupulous; rigorous. "Some certain edicts and some strait decrees." "The straitest sect of our religion."

5.

Difficult; distressful; straited. "To make your strait circumstances yet straiter."

6.

Parsimonious; niggargly; mean. (Obs.) "I beg cold comfort, and you are so strait, And so ingrateful, you deny me that."

adverb

Strait adv. Strictly; rigorously. (Obs.)

See images of 'Strait'

Etymology of 'Strait'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Strait" Quotes from Famous Books

... monument to the memory of a certain Sir Wilfred Altham, of the time of James II., in raising the woodwork of a pew occupied by Mr Sparks's family, the rage of Sir Laurence was so excessive as to be almost deserving of a strait-waistcoat. ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... was wounded, when he perceived his shoulder exposed in this effort, pierced the breast of Polynices with his lance, and gave joy to the citizens of Cadmus, but he broke the point of his spear. But being come to a strait for a spear, he retreated backward on his leg, and taking a stone of marble, he hurled it and crashed his antagonist's spear in the middle: and the battle was on equal terms, both being deprived of the spear in their hands. Then seizing ...

— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... and zealous as well as able services, and at length becoming in fact nearly as great a knave as the knaves (Duke of Buckingham for example) whose favor and support he had been conciliating,—till at last in some dilemma, some strait between conscience and fear, and increased confidence in his own political strength, he opposes or hesitates to further some too foolish or wicked project of his patron knave, or affronts his pride by counselling a different ...

— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... "Your speech is unbridled and unseemly. I am not worthy to be likened to that holy man of old, for whose sake the Lord well nigh saved Sodom, nor am I placed in so sore a strait. You spoke of nothing worse than kissing. The girl will not be the worse, I trow, for a buss or two. Women are not so mighty tender. So long as girls like not the kissing, be sure t'will do them no harm, eh, Desire?" and ...

— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... whether his brother-monarch enjoys the aid of such counsellors as will make an attack on him dangerous; in the later, with the demand that he shall acquit himself satisfactorily, or suffer a forfeit: and the king is delivered from a serious strait by the sagacity either of a minister . . . or of the daughter of his minister, who came to her father's assistance .... These tasks are always such as require ingenuity of one kind or another, whether in devising practical experiments, ...

— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

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