ppl. a. [f. STRAITEN v. + -ED1.] In various senses of the verb.
1. Contracted, narrowed; insufficiently spacious.
1602. [J. Willis], Art Stenogr., A 5. Stenographie, signifieth a straightned or compendious Writing.
1694. Addison, Poems, Virg. Georg., IV. 375. First then a close contracted space of ground, With streighten’d walls and low-built roof they found.
1760–72. H. Brooke, Fool of Qual. (1809), III. 154. The king’s lion … traversed the limits of his straightened dominions.
1800. Ht. Lee, Canterb. T. (ed. 2), III. 153. He was … in lodgings rather straitened and inconvenient.
1822–7. Good, Study Med. (1829), V. 80. About half an inch within the orifice of the urethra, at which part the passage feels peculiarly straitened.
1842. Tennyson, Locksley H., 62. Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten’d forehead of the fool!
1866. Rogers, Agric. & Prices, I. xxiii. 601. Anticipations of excessive demand or of exceedingly straitened supply.
1890. Bridges, Shorter Poems, III. vii. We steered Along a straitened channel flecked with foam.
† b. Limited in power or range of action.
a. 1665. J. Goodwin, Being filled with the Spirit (1867), 328. They that bring up such a report as this upon the Spirit, as that he is but a finite spirit, a created spirit, a straitened spirit, what do they do else but [etc.].
c. Contracted in intelligence or sympathy.
1712. Waterland, Serm., Wks. 1823, VIII. 374. That we may not … grow straitened and narrow in our affections.
1860. Warter, Sea-board & Down, II. 400. He has but a limited and a straitened mind who rejoices not to see the brow of the poor man unbent [etc.].
d. Straitened circumstances: inadequate means of living, poverty. Also straitened income, means.
a. 1766. Mrs. F. Sheridan, Sidney Bidulph (1796), IV. 4. They believed she was in straitened circumstances.
1813. Sketches of Character (ed. 2), I. 21. There remained but a straightened income for the widow.
1838. Dickens, Nich. Nick., x. To remind her of her straitened and altered circumstances.
1877. Mrs. Oliphant, Yng. Musgrave, I. 7. So far as his straitened means and limited stables permitted.
2. Confined in narrow space; having too little room; closely besieged.
1757. W. Wilkie, Epigoniad, VI. 175. Now, when hostile pow’rs With strictest siege invest our strait’ned tow’rs.
1854. Syd. Dobell, Balder, i. Poet. Works 1875, II. 11. You floors, in whose black oak The straitened hamadryad lives and groans.
3. Drawn tight; tightened.
1665. Dryden, Ind. Emp., V. ii. Fasten the Engines; stretch ’em at their length, And pull the streightened Cords with all your strength.
1716. Pope, Iliad, V. 325. My Horses here detain, Fix’d to the Chariot by the straiten’d Rein.
1742. Young, Nt. Th., IV. 397. Or holds he furious storms in streighten’d reins, And bids fierce whirlwinds wheel his rapid car?
4. Reduced to hardship or privation; having straitened means (see 1 d).
1716. Pope, Iliad, V. 255. I … thought the Steeds (your large Supplies unknown) Might fail of Forage in the straiten’d Town.
1888. Bryce, Amer. Commw., cii. III. 438. But even in the East a good many may come from straitened homes.
1911. G. M. Trevelyan, Garibaldi & Making of Italy, ii. 36. Sums … which represented the widow’s mite in many straitened Italian households.
