strait

Etymology

From Middle English streit, from Old French estreit (modern form étroit), from Latin strictus, perfect passive participle of stringō (“compress, tighten”). Doublet of stretto and strict.

adj

1. (archaic) Narrow; restricted as to space or room; close.
   Sweet oil was poured out on thy head And ran down like cool rain between The strait close locks it melted in. 1866, Algernon Swinburne, “Aholibah”, in Poems and Ballads, London: John Camden Hotten, page 311
   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.
2. (archaic) Righteous, strict.
   to follow the strait and narrow
3. (obsolete) Tight; close; tight-fitting.
4. (obsolete) Close; intimate; near; familiar.
5. (obsolete) Difficult; distressful.
   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.
6. (obsolete) Parsimonious; stingy; mean.
7. Obsolete spelling of straight.
   A strait Line over a Vowel denotes the Omission of the Letter m or n following: quā--quam‖nō--non‖[…] […] The strait Line over m in the Middle of a Word denotes the Omission of the Letter n following: om̄es--omnes‖om̄ia--omnia 1810, Record Commission, The Statutes of the Realm. Printed by Command of His Majesty King George the Third in pursuance of an Address of the House of Commons of Great Britain. From Original Records and Manuscripts., volume 1, page lxiii

noun

1. (geography) A narrow channel of water connecting two larger bodies of water.
   the Strait of Gibraltar
2. A narrow pass, passage or street.
3. A neck of land; an isthmus.
4. (often in the plural) A difficult position.
   to be in dire straits
   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 […]

verb

1. (obsolete, transitive) To confine; put to difficulties.
   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 […] 1577, Raphael Holinshed, Holinshed’s Chronicles, volume 1, London: The Historie of Englande, page 3
   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 […] 1658, William Sanderson, A Compleat History of the Life and Raigne of King Charles, London: Humphrey Moseley, et al, page 885
2. (obsolete, transitive) To tighten.

adv

1. (obsolete) Strictly; rigorously.