Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Strait?

\Strait\, a. A variant of {Straight}. [Obs.]
\Strait\, a. [Compar. {Straiter}; superl. {Straitest}.] [OE. straight, streyt, streit, OF. estreit, estroit, F. ['e]troit, from L. strictus drawn together, close, tight, p. p. of stringere to draw tight. See 2nd {Strait}, and cf. {Strict}.] 1. Narrow; not broad. Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. --Matt. vii. 14. Too strait and low our cottage doors. --Emerson. 2. Tight; close; closely fitting. --Shak. 3. Close; intimate; near; familiar. [Obs.] ``A strait degree of favor.'' --Sir P. Sidney. 4. Strict; scrupulous; rigorous. Some certain edicts and some strait decrees. --Shak. The straitest sect of our religion. --Acts xxvi. 5 (Rev. Ver.). 5. Difficult; distressful; straited. To make your strait circumstances yet straiter. --Secker. 6. Parsimonious; niggargly; mean. [Obs.] I beg cold comfort, and you are so strait, And so ingrateful, you deny me that. --Shak.
\Strait\, adv. Strictly; rigorously. [Obs.] --Shak.
\Strait\, n.; pl. {Straits}. [OE. straight, streit, OF. estreit, estroit. See {Strait}, a.] 1. A narrow pass or passage. He brought him through a darksome narrow strait To a broad gate all built of beaten gold. --Spenser. Honor travels in a strait so narrow Where one but goes abreast. --Shak. 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. --De Foe. 3. A neck of land; an isthmus. [R.] A dark strait of barren land. --Tennyson. 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. --Phil. i. 23. Let no man, who owns a Providence, grow desperate under any calamity or strait whatsoever. --South. Ulysses made use of the pretense of natural infirmity to conceal the straits he was in at that time in his thoughts. --Broome.
\Strait\, v. t. To put to difficulties. [Obs.] --Shak.