straits
NounUS[streyts]/streɪts/1 syllable
Open English WordNet
Noun (2)
- a bad or difficult situation or state of affairsSynonyms: passstraitType of situationKinds desperate straits, dire straits
- a difficult juncture“a pretty pass”“matters came to a head yesterday”Synonyms: passheadType of juncture, occasion
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haphazardadjective
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Webster's Dictionary (1913)
“straits” is listed under Strait.
Strait noun; pl. Straits (#).
Origin: OE. straight, streit, OF. estreit, estroit. See Strait, adjective
1. A narrow pass or passage.
He brought him through a darksome narrow strait To a broad gate all built of beaten gold.— Edmund Spenser
Honor travels in a strait so narrow Where one but goes abreast.— William Shakespeare
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.— Daniel De Foe
3. A neck of land; an isthmus. rare
A dark strait of barren land.— Alfred 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.— Robert South
Ulysses made use of the pretense of natural infirmity to conceal the straits he was in at that time in his thoughts.— William Broome
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54