DICT.TW Dictionary Taiwan

 strait /ˈstret/
 海峽,困難(a.)困難的,窘迫的,狹窄的

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

 Strait a. [Compar. Straiter superl. Straitest.]
 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.
 3. Close; intimate; near; familiar. [Obs.] “A strait degree of favor.”
 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 adv. Strictly; rigorously. [Obs.]

 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.

 Strait, v. t. To put to difficulties. [Obs.]
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 strait
      adj : strict and severe; "strait is the gate"
      n 1: a narrow channel of the sea joining two larger bodies of
           water [syn: sound]
      2: a bad or difficult situation or state of affairs [syn: pass,
          straits]