strait

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
strait/streɪt/

▶noun

• 1 (also straits) a narrow passage of water connecting two seas or other large areas of water.

• 2 (straits) a situation characterized by a specified degree of trouble or difficulty: in dire straits.

▶adjective archaic

• 1 narrow or cramped.

• 2 strict or rigorous.

– derivatives
straitly adverb,
straitness noun.

– origin ME: shortening of OFr. estreit ‘tight, narrow’, from L. strictus (see strict).