Webster's Dictionary, 1913

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Strait-laced adjective
1. Bound with stays.

Let nature have scope to fashion the body as she thinks best; we have few well-shaped that are strait- laced .

2. Restricted; stiff; constrained. [ R.] Fuller.

3. Rigid in opinion; strict in manners or morals.

Strait-waistcoat noun Same as Strait-jacket .

Straitly adverb
1. In a strait manner; narrowly; strictly; rigorously. Mark i. 43.

2. Closely; intimately. [ Obsolete]

Straitness noun The quality or condition of being strait; especially, a pinched condition or situation caused by poverty; as, the straitness of their circumstances.

Strake obsolete imperfect of Strike . Spenser.

Strake noun [ See Streak .]
1. A streak. [ Obsolete] Spenser. "White strake ." Gen. xxx. 37.


3. (Shipbuilding) One breadth of planks or plates forming a continuous range on the bottom or sides of a vessel, reaching from the stem to the stern; a streak.


4. (Mining) A trough for washing broken ore, gravel, or sand; a launder.

Strale noun Pupil of the eye. [ Prov. Eng.]

Stram transitive verb [ Confer LG. strammen to strain, straiten, stretch, Dutch stram strained, tight, German stramm .] To spring or recoil with violence. [ Prov. Eng.]

Stram transitive verb To dash down; to beat. [ Prov. Eng.]

Stramash transitive verb [ Confer Stramazoun .] To strike, beat, or bang; to break; to destroy. [ Scot. & Prov. Eng.]

Stramash noun A turmoil; a broil; a fray; a fight. [ Scot. & Prov. Eng.] Barham.

Stramazoun noun [ French estramaçon , Italian stramazzone .] A direct descending blow with the edge of a sword. [ Obsolete] B. Jonson.

Stramineous adjective [ Latin stramineus , from stramen straw, from sternere , stratum , to spread out, to strew.]
1. Strawy; consisting of straw. Robinson.

2. Chaffy; like straw; straw-colored. Burton.

Stramonium noun [ New Latin ; Confer French stramoine .] (Botany) A poisonous plant ( Datura Stramonium ); stinkweed. See Datura , and Jamestown weed .

Stramony noun (Botany) Stramonium.

Strand noun [ Probably from Dutch streen a skein; akin to German strähne a skein, lock of hair, strand of a rope.] One of the twists, or strings, as of fibers, wires, etc., of which a rope is composed.

Strand transitive verb To break a strand of (a rope).

Strand noun [ Anglo-Saxon strand ; akin to D., G., Swedish , & Danish strand , Icelandic strönd .] The shore, especially the beach of a sea, ocean, or large lake; rarely, the margin of a navigable river. Chaucer.

Strand birds . (Zoology) See Shore birds , under Shore . -- Strand plover (Zoology) , a black-bellied plover. See Illust. of Plover . -- Strand wolf (Zoology) , the brown hyena.

Strand transitive verb [ imperfect & past participle Stranded ; present participle & verbal noun Stranding .] To drive on a strand; hence, to run aground; as, to strand a ship.

Strand intransitive verb To drift, or be driven, on shore to run aground; as, the ship stranded at high water.

Strang adjective [ See Strong .] Strong. [ Obsolete or Prov. Eng. & Scot.] Halliwell.

Strange adjective [ Compar. Stranger ; superl. Strangest .] [ Middle English estrange , French étrange , from Latin extraneus that is without, external, foreign, from extra on the outside. See Extra , and confer Estrange , Extraneous .]
1. Belonging to another country; foreign. "To seek strange strands." Chaucer.

One of the strange queen's lords.

I do not contemn the knowledge of strange and divers tongues.

2. Of or pertaining to others; not one's own; not pertaining to one's self; not domestic.

So she, impatient her own faults to see,
Turns from herself, and in strange things delights.
Sir J. Davies.

3. Not before known, heard, or seen; new.

Here is the hand and seal of the duke; you know the character, I doubt not; and the signet is not strange to you.

4. Not according to the common way; novel; odd; unusual; irregular; extraordinary; unnatural; queer. "He is sick of a strange fever." Shak.

Sated at length, erelong I might perceive
Strange alteration in me.

5. Reserved; distant in deportment. Shak.

She may be strange and shy at first, but will soon learn to love thee.

6. Backward; slow. [ Obsolete]

Who, loving the effect, would not be strange
In favoring the cause.
Beau. & Fl.

7. Not familiar; unaccustomed; inexperienced.

In thy fortunes am unlearned and strange .

» Strange is often used as an exclamation.

Strange ! what extremes should thus preserve the snow
High on the Alps, or in deep caves below.

Strange sail (Nautical) , an unknown vessel. -- Strange woman (Script.) , a harlot. Prov. v. 3. -- To make it strange . (a) To assume ignorance, suspicion, or alarm, concerning it . Shak. (b) To make it a matter of difficulty. [ Obsolete] Chaucer. -- To make strange , To make one's self strange . (a) To profess ignorance or astonishment . (b) To assume the character of a stranger . Gen. xlii. 7.

Syn. -- Foreign; new; outlandish; wonderful; astonishing; marvelous; unusual; odd; uncommon; irregular; queer; eccentric.

Strange adverb Strangely. [ Obsolete]

Most strange , but yet most truly, will I speak.

Strange transitive verb To alienate; to estrange. [ Obsolete]

Strange intransitive verb
1. To be estranged or alienated. [ Obsolete]

2. To wonder; to be astonished. [ Obsolete] Glanvill.

Strangely adverb
1. As something foreign, or not one's own; in a manner adapted to something foreign and strange. [ Obsolete] Shak.

2. In the manner of one who does not know another; distantly; reservedly; coldly.

You all look strangely on me.

I do in justice charge thee . . .
That thou commend it strangely to some place
Where chance may nurse or end it.

3. In a strange manner; in a manner or degree to excite surprise or wonder; wonderfully.

How strangely active are the arts of peace!

It would strangely delight you to see with what spirit he converses.

Strangeness noun The state or quality of being strange (in any sense of the adjective).

Stranger noun [ Old French estrangier , French étranger . See Strange .]
1. One who is strange, foreign, or unknown. Specifically: --

(a) One who comes from a foreign land; a foreigner.

I am a most poor woman and a stranger ,
Born out of your dominions.

(b) One whose home is at a distance from the place where he is, but in the same country.


Melons on beds of ice are taught to bear,
And strangers to the sun yet ripen here.

My child is yet a stranger in the world.

I was no stranger to the original.


To honor and receive
Our heavenly stranger .


Stranger transitive verb To estrange; to alienate. [ Obsolete] Shak.

Strangle transitive verb [ imperfect & past participle Strangled ; present participle & verbal noun Strangling .] [ Old French estrangler , French étrangler , Latin strangulare , Greek ..., ..., from ... a halter; and perhaps akin to English string , noun Confer Strain , String .]

Our Saxon ancestors compelled the adulteress to strangle herself.

2. To stifle, choke, or suffocate in any manner.

Shall I not then be stifled in the vault, . . .
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?

3. To hinder from appearance; to stifle; to suppress. " Strangle such thoughts." Shak.

Strangle intransitive verb To be strangled, or suffocated.

Strangle hold In wrestling, a hold by which one's opponent is choked. It is usually not allowed.

Strangleable adjective Capable of being strangled. [ R.] Chesterfield.

Strangler noun One who, or that which, strangles. "The very strangler of their amity." Shak.

Strangles noun A disease in horses and swine, in which the upper part of the throat, or groups of lymphatic glands elsewhere, swells.

Strangulate adjective (Botany) Strangulated.

Strangulated adjective
1. (Medicine) Having the circulation stopped by compression; attended with arrest or obstruction of circulation, caused by constriction or compression; as, a strangulated hernia.

2. (Botany) Contracted at irregular intervals, if tied with a ligature; constricted.

Strangulated hernia . (Medicine) See under Hernia .

Strangulation noun [ Latin strangulatio : confer French strangulation . See Strangle .]
1. The act of strangling, or the state of being strangled.

2. (Medicine) Inordinate compression or constriction of a tube or part, as of the throat; especially, such as causes a suspension of breathing, of the passage of contents, or of the circulation, as in cases of hernia.

Strangurious adjective [ Latin stranguriosus .] (Medicine) Of or pertaining to strangury. Cheyne.

Strangury noun [ Latin stranguria , Greek ...; ..., ..., a drop + ... to make water, ... urine: confer French strangurie . See Strangle , and Urine .]
1. (Medicine) A painful discharge of urine, drop by drop, produced by spasmodic muscular contraction.

2. (Botany) A swelling or other disease in a plant, occasioned by a ligature fastened tightly about it.

Strany noun (Zoology) The guillemot. [ Prov. Eng.]

Strap noun [ Middle English strope , Anglo-Saxon stropp , Latin stroppus , struppus , perhaps from Greek ... a band or cord, from ... to twist, to turn (cf. Strophe ). Confer Strop a strap, a piece of rope.]
1. A long, narrow, pliable strip of leather, cloth, or the like; specifically, a strip of thick leather used in flogging.

A lively cobbler that . . . had scarce passed a day without giving her [ his wife] the discipline of the strap .

2. Something made of such a strip, or of a part of one, or a combination of two or more for a particular use; as, a boot strap , shawl strap , stirrup strap .

3. A piece of leather, or strip of wood covered with a suitable material, for sharpening a razor; a strop.

4. A narrow strip of anything, as of iron or brass. Specifically: --

(a) (Carp. & Mach.) A band, plate, or loop of metal for clasping and holding timbers or parts of a machine.

(b) (Nautical) A piece of rope or metal passing around a block and used for fastening it to anything.

5. (Botany) (a) The flat part of the corolla in ligulate florets, as those of the white circle in the daisy. (b) The leaf, exclusive of its sheath, in some grasses.

6. A shoulder strap. See under Shoulder .

Strap bolt , a bolt of which one end is a flat bar of considerable length. -- Strap head (Machinery) , a journal box, or pair of brasses, secured to the end of a connecting rod by a strap. See Illust. of Gib and key , under Gib . -- Strap hinge , a hinge with long flaps by which it is fastened, as to a door or wall. -- Strap rail (Railroads) , a flat rail formerly used.

Strap transitive verb [ imperfect & past participle Strapped ; present participle & verbal noun Strapping .]
1. To beat or chastise with a strap.

2. To fasten or bind with a strap. Cowper.

3. To sharpen by rubbing on a strap, or strop; as, to strap a razor.

Strap-shaped adjective Shaped like a strap; ligulate; as, a strap-shaped corolla.

Strappado noun ; plural Strappadoes . [ Italian strappata a pull, the strappado, from strappare to pull, from Prov. German strapfen : confer German straff tense, stretched.] A military punishment formerly practiced, which consisted in drawing an offender to the top of a beam and letting him fall to the length of the rope, by which means a limb was often dislocated. Shak.

Strappado transitive verb To punish or torture by the strappado. Milton.

Strapper noun
1. One who uses strap.

2. A person or thing of uncommon size. [ Colloq.]

Strapping adjective Tall; strong; lusty; large; as, a strapping fellow. [ Colloq.]

There are five and thirty strapping officers gone.

Strapple transitive verb To hold or bind with, or as with, a strap; to entangle. [ Obsolete] Chapman.

Strapwork noun (Architecture) A kind of ornament consisting of a narrow fillet or band folded, crossed, and interlaced.