Strait

Strait - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

STRAIT, a. [See Straight.]

1. Narrow; close; not broad.

Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth to life, and few there be that find it. Mat 7.

2. Close; intimate; as a strait degree of favor.

3. Strict; rigorous.

He now, forsooth, takes on him to reform some certain edicts, and some strait decrees.

4. Difficult; distressful.

5. Straight; not crooked.

STRAIT, n. [See Straight.]

1. A narrow pass or passage, either in a mountain or in the ocean, between continents or other portions of land; as the straits of Gibraltar; the straits of Magellan; the straits of Dover. [In this sense, the plural is more generally used than the singular, and often without any apparent reason or propriety.]

2. Distress; difficulty; distressing necessity; formerly written streight. [Used either in the singular or plural.]

Let no man who owns a providence, become desperate under any calamity or strait whatsoever.

Ulysses made use of the pretense of natural infirmity to conceal the straits he was in at that time in his thoughts.

STRAIT, v.t. To put to difficulties. [Not in use.]

Straiten - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

STRAITEN, v.t.

1. To make narrow.

In narrow circuit, straitend by a foe.

2. To contract; to confine; as, to straiten the British commerce.

3. To make tense or tight; as, to straiten a cord.

4. To distress; to perplex; to press with poverty or other necessity; as, a man straitened in his circumstances.

5. To press by want of sufficient room.

Waters when straitened, as at the falls of bridges, give a roaring noise.

Straitly - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

STRAITLY, adv.

1. Narrowly; closely.

2. Strictly; rigorously. [For this, strictly is now used.]

3. Closely; intimately.

strat, strat'-'-n, strat'-il: The word "strait" and its compounds are used in English Versions of the Bible in the literal sense of "narrow" (tsar, 2Ki 6:1; Isa 49:20; mutsaq, Job 37:10; 'atsal, Eze 42:6) and in the figurative sense of "strict" (shabha`, Ex 13:19; caghar, Jos 6:1; tsarar, "to be distressed," 2Sa 24:14 parallel; yatsar, Job 20:22; metsar, La 1:3). In Apocrypha the verb "straitened" occurs in Susanna verse 22. In the New Testament we have stenos (Mt 7:13 f parallel, the Revised Version (British and American) "narrow"; polus, "much"; so the Revised Version (British and American) Mr 3:12; 5:43; sunecho, "to urge," "hold together," Lu 12:50; Php 1:23). It occurs in its superlative form in Ac 26:5, "After the straitest (akribestatos, "most exact," "scrupulous") sect of our religion," i.e. "the most precise and rigorous in interpreting the Mosaic Law, and in observing the more minute precepts of the Law and of tradition" (Thayer, Lexicon, under the word; compare Ac 22:3).

See also STRAIGHT, STRAIGHTWAY.

M. O. Evans