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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.

Parsimonious; sparing; niggardly. [R.] -- Strait"-hand`ed*ness, n. [R.]

A dress of strong materials for restraining maniacs or those who are violently delirious. It has long sleeves, which are closed at the ends, confining the hands, and may be tied behind the back.

ature have scope to fashion the body as she thinks best; we have few well-shaped that are strait-laced. Locke.

Same as Strait-jacket.

To make strait; to make narrow; hence, to contract; to confine. Waters, when straitened, as at the falls of bridges, give a roaring noise. Bacon. In narrow circuit, straitened by a foe. Milton.

In a strait manner; narrowly; strictly; rigorously. Mark i. 43.

The quality or condition of being strait; especially, a pinched condition or situation caused by poverty; as, the straitnessof their circumstances.

Absent-minded; lost in thought; abstracted.

Too straitly or strictly. [Obs.] Sir W. Raleigh.

To become larger. [Obs.] Strait was the way at first, withouten light, But further in did further amplify. Fairfax.

Narrow; strait. [Obs.]

The act or making narrow; a straitening or contacting. Wiseman.

Behind a ship; in the rear. "A gale of wind right astern." De Foe. "Left this strait astern." Drake. To bake astern, to go stern foremost. -- To be astern of the reckoning, to be behind the position given by the reckoning. -- To drop astern, to fall or be left behind. -- To go astern, to go backward, as from the act…

A narrow passage or strait; as, the Great Belt and the Lesser Belt, leading to the Baltic Sea.

A strait or narrow sea between two seas, or a lake and a seas; as, the Bosporus (formerly the Thracian Bosporus) or Strait of Constantinople, between the Black Sea and Sea of Marmora; the Cimmerian Bosporus, between the Black Sea and Sea of Azof. [Written also Bosphorus.]

llular walls made of iron plates riveted together, as the Britannia bridge over the Menai Strait, and the Victoria bridge at Montreal. -- Wheatstone's bridge (Elec.), a device for the measurement of resistances, so called because the balance between the resistances to be measured is indicated by the absence of a curre…

A kind of straitjacket.

The deeper part of a river, harbor, strait, etc., where the main current flows, or which affords the best and safest passage for vessels.

lements; to become free. [He that clears at once will relapse; for finding himself out of straits, he will revert to the customs; but he that cleareth by degrees induceth a habit of frugality. Bacon.