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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Strait \Strait\, noun; pl. {Straits}. [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. --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.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
straits
noun
1: a bad or difficult situation or state of affairs [syn: {pass}, {strait}]
2: a difficult juncture; "a pretty pass"; "matters came to a head yesterday" [syn: {pass}, {head}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
87 Moby Thesaurus words for "straits": arm, armlet, bay, bayou, belt, bight, bind, boca, broken fortune, clutch, complication, cove, creek, crunch, difficulties, distress, embarrassing position, embarrassment, estuary, euripus, fine how-do-you-do, fjord, frith, genteel poverty, gulf, gut, harbor, hard pinch, hardship, hell to pay, hobble, hot water, how-do-you-do, imbroglio, impecuniosity, impecuniousness, inlet, insolvency, jam, kyle, light purse, loch, mess, mix, morass, mouth, narrow, narrow means, narrow seas, narrows, natural harbor, parlous straits, pass, pickle, pinch, plight, poorness, poverty, predicament, pretty pass, pretty pickle, pretty predicament, quagmire, quicksand, reach, road, roads, roadstead, scrape, slender means, slough, sound, spot, squeeze, stew, sticky wicket, strait, straitened circumstances, swamp, tight spot, tight squeeze, tightrope, tricky spot, unholy mess, unprosperousness, voluntary poverty, vows of poverty
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