Strait — Defs

01 a. A variant of Straight.

02 a. Narrow; not broad.

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.
3.
Close; intimate; near; familiar.[Obs.]
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.

03 adv. Strictly; rigorously.

04 n. A narrow pass or passage.

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.” — Spenser.

“Honor travels in a strait so narrow Where one but goes abreast.” — Shak.
2.
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.(Geog.)
“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.

05 v. t. To put to difficulties.