STRAITS • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Straits

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/streɪts/ Listen

noun

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." "Honor travels in a strait so narrow Where one but goes abreast."

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."

3.

A neck of land; an isthmus. (R.) "A dark strait of barren land."

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." "Let no man, who owns a Providence, grow 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."

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Etymology of 'Straits'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Straits" Quotes from Famous Books

... brain, but is of sweet woman and have a special power which the Count give her, and which he may not take away altogether, though he think not so. Hush! Let me speak, and you shall learn. Oh, John, my friend, we are in awful straits. I fear, as I never feared before. We can only trust the good God. Silence! ...

— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... brother Thomas had been taking counsel together about the matter. Mr. Wyley was for turning the boy off at once, and reducing him to the utmost straits of poverty; but his more prudent brother was opposed ...

— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton

... south-east. We were actually thirty miles to the east of the position we had occupied when we left the floe on the 9th. It has been noted by sealers operating in this area that there are often heavy sets to the east in the Belgica Straits, and no doubt it was one of these sets that we had experienced. The originating cause would be a north-westerly gale off Cape Horn, producing the swell that had already caused us so much trouble. After a whispered consultation with Worsley ...

— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... September they passed the Tropic of Capricorn, and by the middle of October they were almost opposite the Straits of Magellan. On this voyage they had kept most of the time far away from the coast, and had landed only when necessary to re-stock their ship ...

— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... TAMAR, accompanied by two transports, sailed through Torres Straits and anchored in Port Essington, in 1824. The port was, however, at that time condemned as a site for a settlement, the supply of fresh water did not come up to expectations, and the dry months ...

— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

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