Strait \Strait\, a. A variant of Straight. [Obs.]

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Strait \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.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Strait \Strait\, v. t. To put to difficulties. [Obs.]

--Shak.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Strait \Strait\, adv. Strictly; rigorously. [Obs.]

--Shak.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Strait \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.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)