Obs. Forms: see the adj. [f. STRAIT a.]
1. trans. ? To brace up to effort.
[Perh. a different word: cf. ON. streita-sk to struggle.]
1340–70. Alex. & Dind., 756. Summe [of your idols] ȝou strenkþen to striue & straiten ȝour minde, & somme eggen in ese to eten and to drinke.
2. As rendering of Vulg. coartare, artare, lit. to press together, contract.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter, xxxiv. 6. And aungel of lord straitand [Vulg. coartans] þaim.
1382. Wyclif, Job xviii. 7. The goingis of his vertue shul be streitid [Vulg. artabuntur]. Ibid., Joel ii. 8. Eche shal not streyte [Vulg. non coartabit] his brother, eche shuln go in his path.
3. To narrow (e.g., the course of a river, a street).
1421. Coventry Leet Bk., 31. That þe Ryuer and the brokes … & allso the Red-dyche be enlargid … þe wiche, be encrochment of dwellers of both sydes, be strayted and narrowid, & with filthe, dong and stonys the watur stoppyd of his cours.
1510. Sel. Cases Star Chamber (Selden Soc.), II. 69. [He] made … many wharffes stathes & keyes … Wherby the seide porte is greatly streyted and hurted … and shippes … applyeng the same for straytnes therof oftymes in greate Jeopardie.
1530. Palsgr., 738/1. It is to wyde, you muste strayght it.
1605. Court Rolls, 174/16. Wickham [Essex] View, 23 Sept. (P.R.O.), Henry Finch hath straited the way in Mosepett Lane to the great annoyance of the King’s people.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., I. 1. The sea is so streited, that some thinke the land there was pierced thorow, and received the seas into it.
1615. Manwood’s Lawes Forest, xxiii. § 7. 228. If any man haue stopped or strayted any Church-way, Mill-way, or other wayes … you shall do us to weet thereof.
b. intr. To become narrowed, to narrow.
a. 1552. Leland, Itin. (1910), V. 52. Dargwent … casteth owt an arme of his abundant water that maketh a poole,… and afterward strayteth, and at the last cummeth ynto Dargwent, and so maketh an isle.
4. To shut up in or force into a narrow space.
c. 1420. ? Lydg., Assembly of Gods, 1633. Lyke as Eolus, beyng at hys large, Streytyd hym sylf thorow his owne lewdenesse.
1534. More, Treat. Passion, Wks. 1347/2. The tyme shall come whan … the churche by persecucion [shal be] so strayghted into so narow a corner, that … it shall seeme that there shall bee than no chrysten countreyes left at all.
1571. Campion, Hist. Irel., vii. (1633), 23. All sorts brake truce and amity with the Gyants, and straited them up so, that from all corners of the land, they must needes assemble into one field.
1579. Fenton, Guicciard., VIII. 442. At the beginning our towne was strayted.
1579–80. North, Plutarch, Crassus (1595), 610. He … straighted the battell of his footemen [Amyot estroissit la bataille de ses gens de pied].
c. 1611. Chapman, Iliad, XIV. 28. Which … yet suffisd, to hide them, though their men Were something streighted [Gr. στείνοντο δὲ λαοι].
1612. J. Davies (Heref.), Muse’s Sacrif. (Grosart), 83/2. My Body’s but the Prison of my Soule; which straits her more, the more that Prison’s free.
1641. Best, Farm. Bks. (Surtees), 21. Your best way will bee to howse them all night, viz.:—to lye them in some howse or barne whare they may not bee straited for roome.
5. a. ? To do violence to, to mar.
1390. Gower, Conf., II. 341. Bot for he wolde be nomore Among the wommen so coveited, The beaute of his face streited He hath.
b. To press hardly upon.
1460. Capgrave, Chron. (Rolls), 309. Ther took he a preest of the secte, and othir servauntis of his, whom the lord Bergeveni streyted so, that thei told wher Oldcastelle was hid.
1594. in Highl. Papers (S.H.S.), I. 186. My Lord Argyll had straitit him verie sore about a band quhilk he had with Huntly.
1614. Gorges, Lucan, X. Argt. Cæsar … By ship to Pharos takes his flight. Where being straighted by his foes, From thence by swimming safely goes.
c. To bring into straits, subject to hardship.
1579–80. North, Plutarch, Sertorius (1595), 633. Hauing straighted his enemies with scarcitie of victuals.
1633. Orkney Witch Trial, in Abbotsford Club Misc., 152. Scho and hir haill fammillie was straitit with drouth for the space off xx dayis ore ane mounth.
c. 1640. Mure, Ps. cvii. 28. While straited thus in these extreams Wnto the Lord they cry.
1654. Vilvain, Enchir. Epigr., V. xii. 95. Exter … Hath with ten sieges grievously bin streited.
d. In passive, To be hard put to it, to be at a loss, to be nonplussed.
1611. Shaks., Wint. T., IV. iv. 365. If your Lasse Interpretation should abuse, and call this Your lacke of loue, or bounty, you were straited For a reply.
1624. T. White, Repl. Fisher, 357. We are not so straighted for words.
1646. R. Baillie, Anabaptism (1647), 37. When in their debates against the baptism of infants they are straited with consequences from the circumcision of infants.
1647. Trapp, Comm. Rev. xvii. 18. The Rhemists are so straited that they know not which way to turn them.
6. To tighten (a knot).
a. 1542. Wyatt, in Tottel’s Misc. (Arb.), 66. And if I did, the lot, That first did me enchayne: May neuer slake the knot, But strayght it to my payne.
7. To confine, restrict to a person, time, etc.; to confine within limits.
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 102 b. His doctrine being not straighted within the boundes of Nature. Ibid., 399. Yet ought not this power be so narrowly streighied either to one Byshop onely … as though there were none other Remission of Sinnes.
b. To restrict in choice. Const. between, betwixt (alternatives, options).
1633. Wariston, Diary (S.H.S.), 110. Being straited by God (as I thought) betuixt three unsupportable burdens.
1637. Gillespie, Engl. Pop. Cerem., II. ix. 51. He is greatly mistaken, whiles he thinkes that a man can be so straited betwixt two scandalls, that he cannot choose but give the one of them.
1642. D. Rogers, Naaman, 30. Straighted betweene the choice of either famine, warre, or pestilence.
c. To restrict in freedom of action.
1533. More, Apol., 249. Yet are they streyghted by the playne law that they may not so do at the seconde, whan the man is relapsed.
1613. Heywood, Silver Age, III. i. Juno. Nor powers of heaven shall straight me till the deaths Of yon adultress and her mechal brats.
a. 1617. P. Bayne, Lect. (1634), 272. God in none of these [things] is straited.
1642. D. Rogers, Naaman, 149. Selfe hath hidebound thee and straited thee in thine owne bowells.
8. To keep ill supplied, to stint.
1513. Sir E. Howard, in Ellis, Orig. Lett., Ser. III. I. 149. I have geven such ordre in dispendyng of our vitaill that ther was never Army so straited, nat by one drynkyng in a day, wich I know well hath byn a grete sparyng.
1564. Harding, Answ. Jewel, xvii. 165. Herein I am more encombred with store, then straighted with lacke.
1601. Holland, Pliny, XVIII. xxi. I. 581. And surely, I doe find this rule of his most true,… in case a man have land ynough for to let his grounds … rest every second yeare. But how if a man is streighted that way, and hath no such reach and circuit lying to his living?
1607. Bp. Hall, Art Div. Medit., iv. Wks. (1625), 107. God hath not straited vs for matter, hauing giuen vs the scope of the whole world.
1669. W. Montagu, in Buccleuch MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm.), I. 446. We are so straighted here in our charities, as we can furnish as yet but two hundred pistoles towards all the Church charities.
9. To reduce the duration or period of.
1571. T. Bannester, Lett. to Cecil, 29 March (P.R.O.). They went from yt, and streyghted owr yerelye Pencyon or Allowance to iij yeres.
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 403 b. Whereas Gregory the 11. reduced the Jubilee to the 33. yeare … Paule 2. and Sixtus the 4. … streighted the Jubilee to the 25. yeare, in the yeare 1475.
10. To limit in amount or degree; also, to impute limitation to.
1533. More, Answ. Poysoned Bk., Wks. 1121/2. I … sayed … that Frith was but a foole so to straite and to limite the power of almightye god.
1596. Babington, Profit. Exp., 185. Now in the time of his Gospell his goodnes is not streyted or diminished.
1647. H. More, Song of Soul, II. iii. IV. xli. So that the durance of the Deity We must contract, or strait his full Benignity.
Hence † Straited ppl. a.
1581. A. Hall, Iliad, VII. 125. Lycurgus … slue him downe in strayted lane [στεινωπῷ ὲν όδῷ], where club he could not weeld.
1643. H. More, Song of Soul, I. ii. 42. But that full right … did so unbind His straited sprights, that [etc.].
