Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Strait

Strait (strāt), a. A variant of Straight. [Obs.]

Strait, a. [Compar. Straiter; superl. Straitest.] [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.] 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 (strāt), 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.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.