strait

• POS: Adjective, Noun

CIDE DICTIONARY

strait, a. 

 A variant of Straight.  [1913 Webster]

strait, a. [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.].

•  Narrow; not broad.  [1913 Webster]

  "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."  [1913 Webster]

  "Too strait and low our cottage doors."  [1913 Webster]
•  Tight; close; closely fitting.  Shak.  [1913 Webster]
•  Close; intimate; near; familiar.  Sir P. Sidney.  [1913 Webster]
•  Strict; scrupulous; rigorous.  [1913 Webster]

  "Some certain edicts and some strait decrees."  [1913 Webster]

  "The straitest sect of our religion."  [1913 Webster]
•  Difficult; distressful; straited.  [1913 Webster]

  "To make your strait circumstances yet straiter."  [1913 Webster]
•  Parsimonious; niggargly; mean.  [1913 Webster]

  "I beg cold comfort, and you are so strait,
  And so ingrateful, you deny me that."  [1913 Webster]

strait, adv. 

 Strictly; rigorously.  Shak.  [1913 Webster]

strait, n. [OE. straight, streit, OF. estreit, estroit. See Strait, a.].

•  A narrow pass or passage.  [1913 Webster]

  "He brought him through a darksome narrow strait
  To a broad gate all built of beaten gold."  [1913 Webster]

  "Honor travels in a strait so narrow
  Where one but goes abreast."  [1913 Webster]
•  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.  [1913 Webster]

  "We steered directly through a large outlet which they call a strait, though it be fifteen miles broad."  [1913 Webster]
•  A neck of land; an isthmus.  [1913 Webster]

  "A dark strait of barren land."  [1913 Webster]
•  Fig.: A condition of narrowness or restriction; doubt; distress; difficulty; poverty; perplexity; -- sometimes in the plural; as, reduced to great straits.  [1913 Webster]

  "For I am in a strait betwixt two."  [1913 Webster]

  "Let no man, who owns a Providence, grow desperate under any calamity or strait whatsoever."  [1913 Webster]

  "Ulysses made use of the pretense of natural infirmity to conceal the straits he was in at that time in his thoughts."  [1913 Webster]

strait, v. t. 

 To put to difficulties.  Shak.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

strait, n. & adj.
--n.
1 (in sing. or pl.) a narrow passage of water connecting two seas or large bodies of water.
2 (usu. in pl.) difficulty, trouble, or distress (usu. in dire or desperate straits).
--adj. archaic 1 narrow, limited; confined or confining.
2 strict or rigorous.

Idiom

strait-laced severely virtuous; morally scrupulous; puritanical.

Derivative

straitly adv. straitness n.

Etymology

ME streit f. OF estreit tight, narrow f. L strictus STRICT

THESAURUS

strait

angustifoliate, angustirostrate, angustisellate, angustiseptal, arm, armlet, bay, bayou, belt, bight, bind, boca, bottleneck, bound, bounded, box, breakers ahead, canal, cardhouse, cause for alarm, channel, circumscribed, climacteric, close, close-fitting, clutch, complication, conditioned, confined, confining, constricted, contingency, convergence of events, copyrighted, cove, cramp, cramped, creek, crisis, critical juncture, critical point, crossroads, crowded, crucial period, crunch, danger, dangerous ground, defile, demanding, difficult, dilemma, disciplined, embarrassing position, embarrassment, emergency, endangerment, estuary, euripus, exacting, exigency, extremity, fine how-do-you-do, finite, fjord, frith, gaping chasm, gathering clouds, gulf, gut, harbor, hazard, hell to pay, hinge, hobble, hot water, house of cards, how-do-you-do, imbroglio, imperilment, incapacious, incommodious, inlet, isthmian, isthmic, isthmus, jam, jeopardy, kyle, limited, limiting, loch, meager, menace, mess, mix, moderated, morass, mouth, narrow, narrow seas, narrows, natural harbor, near, neck, parlous straits, pass, patented, peril, perplexity, pickle, pinch, plight, predicament, prescribed, pretty pass, pretty pickle, pretty predicament, proscribed, push, quagmire, qualified, quicksand, reach, restricted, restricting, rigorous, risk, road, roads, roadstead, rocks ahead, rub, scant, scanty, scrape, slender, slough, sound, spot, squeeze, stew, sticky wicket, storm clouds, straitened, straits, swamp, thin ice, threat, throat, tight, tight spot, tight squeeze, tightrope, tricky spot, trouble, turn, turning, turning point, unholy mess

ROGET THESAURUS

strait

Difficulty

N difficulty, hardness, impracticability, tough work, hard work, uphill work, hard task, Herculean task, Augean task, task of Sisyphus, Sisyphean labor, tough job, teaser, rasper, dead lift, dilemma, embarrassment, deadlock, perplexity, intricacy, entanglement, complexity, cross fire, awkwardness, delicacy, ticklish card to play, knot, Gordian knot, dignus vindice nodus, net, meshes, maze, coil, crooked path, involvement, nice point, delicate point, subtle point, knotty point, vexed question, vexata quaestio, poser, puzzle, paradox, hard nut to crack, nut to crack, bone to pick, crux, pons asinorum, where the shoe pinches, nonplus, quandary, strait, pass, pinch, pretty pass, stress, brunt, critical situation, crisis, trial, rub, emergency, exigency, scramble, scrape, hobble, slough, quagmire, hot water, hornet's nest, sea of troubles, peck of troubles, pretty kettle of fish, pickle, stew, imbroglio, mess, ado, false position, set fast, stand, standstill, deadlock, dead set, fix, horns of a dilemma, cul de sac, hitch, stumbling block, crab, curmudgeon, difficult, not easy, hard, tough, troublesome, toilsome, irksome, operose, laborious, onerous, arduous, Herculean, formidable, sooner said than done, more easily said than done, easier said than done, difficult to deal with, hard to deal with, ill-conditioned, crabbed, crabby, not to be handled with kid gloves, not made with rose water, awkward, unwieldy, unmanageable, intractable, stubborn, perverse, refractory, plaguy, trying, thorny, rugged, knotted, knotty, invious, pathless, trackless, labyrinthine, intricate, complicated, impracticable, not feasible, desperate, embarrassing, perplexing, delicate, ticklish, critical, beset with difficulties, full of difficulties, surrounded by difficulties, entangled by difficulties, encompassed with difficulties, under a difficulty, in a box, in difficulty, in hot water, in the suds, in a cleft stick, in a fix, in the wrong box, in a scrape, in deep water, in a fine pickle, in extremis, between two stools, between Scylla and Charybdis, surrounded by shoals, surrounded by breakers, surrounded by quicksands, at cross purposes, not out of the wood, reduced to straits, hard pressed, sorely pressed, run hard, pinched, put to it, straitened, hard up, hard put to it, hard set, put to one's shifts, puzzled, at a loss, at the end of one's tether, at the end of one's rope, at one's wit's end, at a nonplus, at a standstill, graveled, nonplused, nonplussed, stranded, aground, stuck fast, set fast, up a tree, at bay, aux abois, driven into a corner, driven from pillar to post, driven to extremity, driven to one's wit's end, driven to the wall, au bout de son Latin, out of one's depth, thrown out, accomplished with difficulty, hard-fought, hard-earned, with difficulty, with much ado, barely, hardly, uphill, against the stream, against the grain, d rebours, invita Minerva, in the teeth of, at a pinch, upon a pinch, at long odds, against long odds, ay there's the rub, hic labor hoc opus, things are come to a pretty pass, ab inconvenienti, ad astra per aspera, acun chemin de fleurs ne conduit a la gloire.

Interval

N interval, interspace, separation, break, gap, opening, hole, chasm, hiatus, caesura, interruption, interregnum, interstice, lacuna, cleft, mesh, crevice, chink, rime, creek, cranny, crack, chap, slit, fissure, scissure, rift, flaw, breach, rent, gash, cut, leak, dike, ha-ha, gorge, defile, ravine, canon, crevasse, abyss, abysm, gulf, inlet, frith, strait, gully, pass, furrow, abra, barranca, barranco, clove, gulch, notch, yawning gulf, hiatus maxime, hiatus valde deflendus, parenthesis, void, incompleteness, period, interim (time), with an interval, far between, breachy, rimose, rimulose, at intervals, longo intervallo.

Lake

N gulf, lake, land covered with water, gulf, gulph, bay, inlet, bight, estuary, arm of the sea, bayou, fiord, armlet, frith, firth, ostiary, mouth, lagune, lagoon, indraught, cove, creek, natural harbor, roads, strait, narrows, Euripus, sound, belt, gut, kyles, continental slope, continental shelf, lake, loch, lough, mere, tarn, plash, broad, pond, pool, lin, puddle, slab, well, artesian well, standing water, dead water, sheet of water, fish pond, mill pond, ditch, dike, dyke, dam, reservoir, alberca, barachois, hog wallow, lacustrine.