Dictionary De - En
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De - Pt| English Dictionary: straits | by the DICT Development Group |
| 2 results for straits | |
| From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]: | |
| From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: | |
|
Strait \Strait\, n.; pl. {Straits}. [OE. straight, streit, OF. estreit, estroit. See {Strait}, a.] 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. | |
