GNU Collaborative International Dictionary of English
last match results
Found 5 definitions
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Strait (?), a. A variant of Straight. [Obs.]
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Strait (?), a. [Compar. Straiter (?); superl. Straitest.] [OE. straight, streyt, streit, OF. estreit, estroit, F. étroit, from L. strictus drawn together, close, tight, p. p. of stringere to draw tight. See 2nd Strait, and cf. Strict.]
1. Narrow; not broad.
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Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Matt. vii. 14.
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Too strait and low our cottage doors. Emerson.
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2. Tight; close; closely fitting. Shak.
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3. Close; intimate; near; familiar. [Obs.] “A strait degree of favor.” Sir P. Sidney.
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4. Strict; scrupulous; rigorous.
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Some certain edicts and some strait decrees. Shak.
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The straitest sect of our religion. Acts xxvi. 5 (Rev. Ver.).
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5. Difficult; distressful; straited.
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To make your strait circumstances yet straiter. Secker.
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6. Parsimonious; niggargly; mean. [Obs.]
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I beg cold comfort, and you are so strait,
And so ingrateful, you deny me that. Shak.
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Strait (?), adv. Strictly; rigorously. [Obs.] Shak.
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Strait, n.; pl. Straits (#). [OE. straight, streit, OF. estreit, estroit. See Strait, a.]
1. A narrow pass or passage.
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He brought him through a darksome narrow strait
To a broad gate all built of beaten gold. Spenser.
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Honor travels in a strait so narrow
Where one but goes abreast. Shak.
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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.”
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We steered directly through a large outlet which they call a strait, though it be fifteen miles broad. De Foe.
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3. A neck of land; an isthmus. [R.]
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A dark strait of barren land. Tennyson.
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4. Fig.: A condition of narrowness or restriction; doubt; distress; difficulty; poverty; perplexity; -- sometimes in the plural; as, “reduced to great straits”.
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For I am in a strait betwixt two. Phil. i. 23.
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Let no man, who owns a Providence, grow desperate under any calamity or strait whatsoever. South.
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Ulysses made use of the pretense of natural infirmity to conceal the straits he was in at that time in his thoughts. Broome.
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Strait, v. t. To put to difficulties. [Obs.] Shak.
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