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What is "strait-laced"

Crossword clues for strait-laced

strait-laced
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Strait-laced

Strait-laced \Strait"-laced`\, a.

  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.
    --Locke.

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

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

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
strait-laced

early 15c., of stays or bodices, "made close and tight;" see strait (adj.) + lace (v.). Figurative sense of "over-precise, prudish, strict in manners or morals" is from 1550s.

Wiktionary
strait-laced

a. 1 (alternative spelling of straight-laced English) 2 bind with stays.

WordNet
strait-laced

adj. exaggeratedly proper; "my straitlaced Aunt Anna doesn't approve of my miniskirts" [syn: priggish, prim, prissy, prudish, puritanical, square-toed, straitlaced, straightlaced, straight-laced, tight-laced, victorian]

Usage examples of "strait-laced".

Any time she wanted to fill her house with guests, she could do so and these guests would be far more entertain­ing, far more handsomely dressed than those prissy, strait-laced old fools who disapproved of her.

Christ cultists had something of a reputation for strait-laced behavior.

She clenched her teeth tightly together to keep in certain words and phrases which she knew might shock her strait-laced and proper husband.

The strait-laced northerner's disapproving gaze could chill any gathering.

Secondly, well, what with the almost complete coverage of most of the clothing worn on the island, and all the many and pious references to religion, I had gotten the impression that these were an overly strait-laced sort of people.

There was something almost schizophrenic about the way these people were super strait-laced at some times and totally uninhibited at others.