strait

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English streit, also strait,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman estreit (“tight, close, narrow”), a variant of estroit,^[5][2][6][7] now étroit (“narrow”),^[6][8] from Latin strictus (“drawn tight”), the past participle of stringō (“to draw tight, bind”),^[6][5][4][9] from Proto-Indo-European *streig-.^[4] The Old French word was also a noun for a narrow place, a strait of the sea or distress,^[6][7] and the English noun is either that noun or a noun use of the English adjective.^[5][10][3] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English take the English word as a shortened form of the French one, without the initial e-.^[7][11][12] The Latin participle is also the source of estreit, estrecho, estreito and stretto,^[6] and of strict, a doublet.^[5][10][9] Weekley thought the geographical noun also continued destreit (“defile, isthmus, narrow channel”).^[13] The word was confused early with the unrelated straight, a Germanic word, and each was spelled in the other's forms.^[5][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OED's first record of the word is from 1200,^[6] and Hoad dates the adverb, "tightly", to the 12th century.^[12] The adjective, of a path or way "narrow", of a binding "tightly pulled", of a ruler or law "strict", is recorded from about 1300.^[5][10]

Semantic evolution

The adjective covered both physical narrowness and strictness, and its senses spread from tight clothes and bonds to cramped spaces, narrow ways and strict rules.^[5][6][12] As a noun it named a narrow confined place, especially a pass between hills, by the mid-14th century,^[5][2] and by the late 14th century a narrow passage of water joining two larger ones: Barnhart's first record is in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, about 1390.^[5][10][9] Middle English also used it for cloth woven in a single width.^[2][3] The figurative sense "difficulty, plight", usually in the plural straits, is first recorded in 1544.^[10][5][9] The Bible's "strait is the gate, and narrow is the way" (Matthew 7:14) kept the adjective alive in the strait and narrow, a conventional, limited way of life;^[6][3][7][5] otherwise the adjective became archaic, surviving in compounds such as strait-laced and straitjacket.^[12][14] In Scotland and the north and Midlands of England it was still used for "narrow, tight, too small" around 1900, often as stret.^[15]

Timeline

• 1200 – first record, according to the OED.^[6]
• c. 1290 – affording little room, narrow.^[6]
• c. 1300 – narrow; tightly pulled; strict.^[5][10]
• before 1340 – figurative, of a way of life.^[6]
• mid-14th century – noun, a narrow pass or confined place.^[5]
• before 1387 – of a garment, tight-fitting.^[6]
• c. 1390 – a narrow channel of water, in Chaucer.^[10][5]
• 1544 – difficulty, plight.^[10]
• 1554 – strait-laced, rigid, prudish.^[10]
• 1814 – straitjacket, in Scott's letters.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A narrow channel of the sea joining two larger bodies of water, often in the plural and in names: the Strait of Dover.^[14][3][7]
2. A position of great difficulty or need, usually in the plural: The firm was in desperate straits by the spring.^[14][3][7]
3. (archaic) A narrow space or passage.^[14][3][7]

Adjective

1. (archaic) Affording little room; narrow or confined.^[14][3][7]
2. (archaic) Strict, rigorous or exacting.^[14][3]
3. (archaic) Of circumstances, limiting or difficult.^[14][3]
4. (archaic) Tight-fitting; drawn tight.^[3][7][6]

Word family

• straitly
• straitness
• straitjacket
• strait-laced

Related words

• strict
• straiten
• stringent
• strain
• constrain
• distress
• straight

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)