adv. [f. STRAIGHT a. + WAY sb.]
† 1. By a direct course, straight from or to a place. Obs.
1461. Paston Lett., II. 38. Item, sir, thys day cam on John Waynflet from the Kyng streyt weye.
c. 1485. Digby Myst., III. 427. Serys, I abey your covnsell in eche degre; strytt waye þethyr woll I passe.
1486. Bk. St. Albans, d j b. Crepe softely towarde the fowle: from yowre hawke streght way.
1587. Harrison, England, II. vi. 167/2, in Holinshed. The merchant would haue thought that his soule should haue gone streightwaie to the diuell, if he should haue serued them with other than the best.
2. Immediately; without interval or delay; at once. Now only literary.
1526. Tindale, Matt. iv. 20. They strayght waye lefte there nettes. Ibid., John xxi. 3. They … entred into a shippe strayght waye. Ibid., Rom. ix. 7. Nether are they all children strayght way be cause they are the seede of Abraham.
1576. Fleming, Panopl. Epist., 248. Whiche if he sought not to recompence by reuengement, then was he thought straight way a cowardly beast.
1666. G. Harvey, Morbus Angl., ix. (1672), 25. Grief protracted to some space of time, doth inevitably absorb the fleshy parts of the body, and strait-way hasten to a perfect Consumption.
1714. Prior, Viceroy, 66. That he, O! Ciel, without trial, Straitway shou’d hanged be.
1786. Har’st Rig, xvi. This being done, they straughtway gang Into the barn.
1816. Coleridge, Statesm. Man., 18. But let the winds of passion swell, and straitway men begin to generalize.
1838. Dickens, Nickleby, xxviii. She straightway sat down and indited a long letter.
1852. Thackeray, Esmond, II. vii. They dazzle him, so that the past becomes straightway dim to him.
1867. Morley, Burke, 240. It is too commonly asserted, and straightway accepted, that the Revolution destroyed, but contributed nothing to the yet greater task of reconstruction.
