Pronunciations (2)
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/stɹeɪt/
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stɹeɪt
Adjective
Narrow; restricted as to space or room; close.
Usage- Archaic
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Sweet oil was poured out on thy head And ran down like cool rain between The strait close locks it melted in.
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; […]
More examples (1)
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.
Righteous, strict.
Usage- Archaic
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to follow the strait and narrow
[he] takes on him to reform Some certain edicts and some strait decrees That lie too heavy on the commonwealth,
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[…] after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.
Tight; close; tight-fitting.
Usage- Obsolete
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Palamon. […] Stay a little, Is not this peece too streight? Arcite. No, no, tis well.
Close; intimate; near; familiar.
Usage- Obsolete
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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 […]
Difficult; distressful.
Usage- Obsolete
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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.
Parsimonious; stingy; mean.
Usage- Obsolete
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[…] I do not ask you much, I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait And so ingrateful, you deny me that.
Noun
A narrow channel of water connecting two larger bodies of water.
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the Strait of Gibraltar
[…] we steered directly through a large Out-let, which they call a Streight, tho’ it be fifteen Miles broad […]
A narrow pass, passage or street.
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He brought him through a darksom narrow strayt, To a broad gate all built of beaten gold:
For honour travels in a strait so narrow, Where one but goes abreast:
A neck of land; an isthmus.
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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.
A difficult position.
Usage- in-plural
- often
- Examples
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to be in dire straits
More examples (2)
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 […]
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 […]
Verb
To confine; put to difficulties.
Usage- Obsolete
- Transitive
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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 […]
[…] If your lass Interpretation should abuse and call this Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited For a reply […]
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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 […]
To tighten.
Usage- Obsolete
- Transitive
Adverb
Strictly; rigorously.
Usage- Obsolete
- Examples
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More examples (1)
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.
Adjective
narrow
- Examples
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strait is the gate
Noun
a narrow channel of the sea joining two larger bodies of water
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
a bad or difficult situation or state of affairs
- Broader terms