Chapter Strainable to Strangulation of S by Webster's Dictionary (1913 Edition)

6. Parsimonious; niggargly; mean. [Obs.]

I beg cold comfort, and you are so strait,
And so ingrateful, you deny me that.

Shak.

Strait
(Strait) adv. Strictly; rigorously. [Obs.] Shak.

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.

Strait
(Strait), v. t. To put to difficulties. [Obs.] Shak.

Straiten
(Strait"en) v. t. [imp. & p. p. Straitened ; p. pr. & vb. n. Straitening.]

1. To make strait; to make narrow; hence, to contract; to confine.

Waters, when straitened, as at the falls of bridges, give a roaring noise.

Bacon.

In narrow circuit, straitened by a foe.

Milton.

2. To make tense, or tight; to tighten.

They straiten at each end the cord.

Pope.

3. To restrict; to distress or embarrass in respect of means or conditions of life; — used chiefly in the past participle; — as, a man straitened in his circumstances.

Strait-handed
(Strait"-hand`ed) a. Parsimonious; sparing; niggardly. [R.] — Strait"- hand`ed*ness, n. [R.]