strait

English

Alternative forms

• streit (obsolete)
• streight (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English streit, from Old French estreit (modern form étroit), from Latin strictus, perfect passive participle of stringō (“compress, tighten”). Doublet of stretto and strict.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /stɹeɪt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪt
• Homophone: straight

Adjective

strait (comparative straiter, superlative straitest)

1. (archaic) Narrow; restricted as to space or room; close.
   • 1866, Algernon Swinburne, “Aholibah”, in Poems and Ballads‎, London: John Camden Hotten, page 311:

     Sweet oil was poured out on thy head
     And ran down like cool rain between
     The strait close locks it melted in.

   • 1867, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “May-Day”, in May-Day and Other Pieces, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, pages 14–15:

     Where shall we keep the holiday, / And duly greet the entering May? / Too strait and low our cottage doors, / And all unmeet our carpet floors; […]

   • 1894, Ernest Dowson, “To One in Bedlam” in The Second Book of The Rhymers’ Club, London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane, p. 35,

     Those scentless wisps of straw, that miserably line

     His strait, caged universe, whereat the dull world stares,

     Pedant and pitiful.

2. (archaic) Righteous, strict.

   to follow the strait and narrow

   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, ”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     [he] takes on him to reform / Some certain edicts and some strait decrees / That lie too heavy on the commonwealth,

   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Acts 26:5:

     […] after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.

3. (obsolete) Tight; close; tight-fitting.
   • 1613–1614, William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, “The Two Noble Kinsmen.”, in Comedies and Tragedies , London: Humphrey Robinson, , and for Humphrey Moseley , published 1679, →OCLC, Act III, scene vii:

     Palamon. […] Stay a little, / Is not this peece too streight? / Arcite. No, no, tis well.

4. (obsolete) Close; intimate; near; familiar.
   • a. 1587, Philippe Sidnei [i.e., Philip Sidney], “(please specify the page number)”, in Fulke Greville, Matthew Gwinne, and John Florio, editors, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia [The New Arcadia], London: for William Ponsonbie, published 1590, →OCLC; republished in Albert Feuillerat, editor, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia (Cambridge English Classics: The Complete Works of Sir Philip Sidney; I), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1912, →OCLC:

     After the noble Prince Leonatus had by his fathers death succeeded in the kingdome of Galatia, he (forgetting all former iniuries) had receiued that naughtie Plexirtus into a streight degree of fauour […]

5. (obsolete) Difficult; distressful.
   • 18th c., Thomas Secker, Sermons on Several Subjects, 2nd edition, 1771, Volume III, Sermon XI, p. 253,

     But to make your strait Circumstances yet straiter, for the Sake of idle Gratifications, and distress yourselves in Necessaries, only to indulge in Trifles and Vanities, delicate Food, shewish Dress, ensnaring Diversions, is every Way wrong.

6. (obsolete) Parsimonious; stingy; mean.
   • c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     […] I do not ask you much, / I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait / And so ingrateful, you deny me that.

7. Obsolete spelling of straight.
   • 1810, Record Commission, The Statutes of the Realm. Printed by Command of His Majesty King George the Third in pursuance of an Address of the House of Commons of Great Britain. From Original Records and Manuscripts., volume 1, page lxiii:

     A strait Line over a Vowel denotes the Omission of the Letter m or n following:
     quā     -     -     quam     ‖     nō     -     -     non     ‖     […]
     […]
     The strait Line over m in the Middle of a Word denotes the Omission of the Letter n following:
     om̄es     -     -     omnes     ‖     om̄ia     -     -     omnia

Usage notes

The adjective is often confused with straight.

Derived terms

• strait-handed
• straitjacket
• strait-laced
• straitwaistcoat

Translations

Noun

strait (plural straits)

1. (geography) A narrow channel of water connecting two larger bodies of water.

   the Strait of Gibraltar

   • 1720, [Daniel Defoe], The Life, Adventures, and Pyracies, of the Famous Captain Singleton, London: J. Brotherton, , J. Graves , A. Dodd, , and T. Warner, , →OCLC, pages 232–233:

     […] we steered directly through a large Out-let, which they call a Streight, tho’ it be fifteen Miles broad […]

2. A narrow pass, passage or street.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 282:

     He brought him through a darksom narrow strayt, / To a broad gate all built of beaten gold:

   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:

     For honour travels in a strait so narrow, / Where one but goes abreast:

3. A neck of land; an isthmus.
   • 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “Morte d’Arthur”, in Poems. , volume II, London: Edward Moxon, , →OCLC, page 4:

     The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him, / Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights, / And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, / A broken chancel with a broken cross, / That stood on a dark strait of barren land.

4. (often in the plural) A difficult position.

   to be in dire straits

   • 1684, Robert South, “A Sermon Preached at Westminster-Abbey” in Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, London: Thomas Bennett, 1692, p. 420,

     let no man, who owns the Belief of a Providence, grow desperate or forlorn, under any Calamity or Strait whatsoever

   • 1725, Homer, “(please specify the book or chapter of the Odyssey)”, in [William Broome, Elijah Fenton, and Alexander Pope], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. , volume III, London: Bernard Lintot, →OCLC, page 19:

     Plutarch is of opinion that this sleep of Ulysses was feigned; and that he made use of the pretence of natural infirmity to conceal the streights he was in at that time in his thoughts […]

Usage notes

The geographical term straits used in the name of a location (as a proper noun) does not necessarily imply the existence of multiple straits; see for instance the Bering Straits, the Straits of Gibraltar, the Straits of Hormuz, the Straits of Juan de Fuca, the Straits of Magellan, the Straits of Malacca, the Sunda Straits, the Taiwan Straits, etc.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

strait (third-person singular simple present straits, present participle straiting, simple past and past participle straited)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To confine; put to difficulties.
   • 1577, Raphael Holinshed, Holinshed’s Chronicles‎, volume 1, London: The Historie of Englande, page 3:

     After Bardus, the Celtes […] were in short tyme, and with small labour broughte vnder the subiection of the Giaunt Albion, the sonne of Neptune, who altering the state of things here in this yland, straited the name of Celtica and the Celtes within the boundes of Gallia […]

   • c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     […] If your lass / Interpretation should abuse and call this / Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited / For a reply […]

   • 1658, William Sanderson, A Compleat History of the Life and Raigne of King Charles‎, London: Humphrey Moseley, et al, page 885:

     The King, Duke of York, Prince Rupert and Maurice are still at Oxford closely surrounded by the Parliaments Forces, and the other not well resolving what course to take, all their Horse being about Faringdon, in expectation of the Lord Ashley with his Foot to joyn in a Body, if they be not prevented by Colonel Fleetwood and Rainsborough, straiting and allarming Oxford very often […]

2. (obsolete, transitive) To tighten.

Adverb

strait (comparative straiter, superlative straitest)

1. (obsolete) Strictly; rigorously.
   • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, ”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies.  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     Lords, take your places; and, I pray you all, / Proceed no straiter ’gainst our uncle Gloucester / Than from true evidence of good esteem / He be approved in practise culpable.

See also

• Category:en:Straits

Further reading

• strait on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “strait”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “strait”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• Rattis, artist, atrist, ittars, star it, strati, traits