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]