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)