straits
 海峽
 Strait, n.; pl. Straits
 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.
 straits
      n 1: a bad or difficult situation or state of affairs [syn: pass,
            strait]
      2: a difficult juncture; "a pretty pass"; "matters came to a
         head yesterday" [syn: pass, head]