different between strait vs necessity

English

Alternative forms

• streight (obsolete)
• streit (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English streit, from Old French estreit (modern form étroit), from Latin strictus, perfect passive participle of string? (“compress, tighten”). Doublet of stretto and strict.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?e?t/
• Rhymes: -e?t
• Homophone: straight

Adjective

strait (comparative straiter, superlative straitest)

1. (archaic) Narrow; restricted as to space or room; close.
   • 1866, Algernon Swinburne, “Aholibah” in Poems and Ballads, London: John Camden Hotten, p. 311,^[1]

     Sweet oil was poured out on thy head

     And ran down like cool rain between

     The strait close locks it melted in.

   • 1894, Ernest Dowson, “To One in Bedlam” in The Second Book of The Rhymers’ Club, London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane, p. 35,^[3]

     Those scentless wisps of straw, that miserably line

     His strait, caged universe, whereat the dull world stares,

     Pedant and pitiful.

2. (archaic) Righteous, strict.
3. (obsolete) Tight; close; tight-fitting.
4. (obsolete) Close; intimate; near; familiar.
5. (obsolete) Difficult; distressful.
   • 18th c., Thomas Secker, Sermons on Several Subjects, 2nd edition, 1771, Volume III, Sermon XI, p. 253,^[4]

     But to make your strait Circumstances yet straiter, for the Sake of idle Gratifications, and distress yourselves in Necessaries, only to indulge in Trifles and Vanities, delicate Food, shewish Dress, ensnaring Diversions, is every Way wrong.

6. (obsolete) Parsimonious; stingy; mean.

Translations

Usage notes

The adjective is often confused with straight.

Derived terms

• straitjacket
• strait-laced

Noun

strait (plural straits)

1. (geography) A narrow channel of water connecting two larger bodies of water.
2. A narrow pass, passage or street.
3. A neck of land; an isthmus.
4. (often in the plural) A difficult position.
   • 1684, Robert South, “A Sermon Preached at Westminster-Abbey” in Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, London: Thomas Bennett, 1692, p. 420,^[5]

     […] let no man, who owns the Belief of a Providence, grow desperate or forlorn, under any Calamity or Strait whatsoever […]

Derived terms

• dire straits
• Menai Strait

Translations

Verb

strait (third-person singular simple present straits, present participle straiting, simple past and past participle straited)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To confine; put to difficulties.
   • 1577, Raphael Holinshed et al., Holinshed’s Chronicles, London: 1577, Volume 1, The Historie of Englande, p. 3,^[6]

     After Bardus, the Celtes […] were in short tyme, and with small labour broughte vnder the subiection of the Giaunt Albion, the sonne of Neptune, who altering the state of things here in this yland, straited the name of Celtica and the Celtes within the boundes of Gallia […]

   • 1658, William Sanderson, A Compleat History of the Life and Raigne of King Charles, London: Humphrey Moseley et al., p. 885,^[7]

     The King, Duke of York, Prince Rupert and Maurice are still at Oxford closely surrounded by the Parliaments Forces, and the other not well resolving what course to take, all their Horse being about Faringdon, in expectation of the Lord Ashley with his Foot to joyn in a Body, if they be not prevented by Colonel Fleetwood and Rainsborough, straiting and allarming Oxford very often […]

2. (obsolete, transitive) To tighten.

Adverb

strait (comparative straiter, superlative straitest)

1. (obsolete) Strictly; rigorously.

Further reading

• strait on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Rattis, artist, atrist, ittars, star it, strati, traits

English

Etymology

From Middle English necessite, from Old French necessite, from Latin necessit?s (“unavoidableness, compulsion, exigency, necessity”), from necesse (“unavoidable, inevitable”); see necessary.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /n??s?s?ti/

Noun

necessity (countable and uncountable, plural necessities)

2. The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite.
3. The condition of being needy; desperate need; lack.
   • 1863, Richard Sibbes, The Successful Seeker, in The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, D.D., Volume VI, James Nichol, page 125,

     For it is in vain for a man to think to seek God in his necessity and exigence, if he seek not God in his ordinances, and do not joy in them.

4. Something necessary; a requisite; something indispensable.
   • 20th century, Tenzin Gyatso (attributed)

     Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.

5. Something which makes an act or an event unavoidable; an irresistible force; overruling power.
   • 1804, Wordsworth, The Small Celandine

     I stopped, and said with inly muttered voice,

     'It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold:

     This neither is its courage nor its choice,

     But its necessity in being old.

6. The negation of freedom in voluntary action; the subjection of all phenomena, whether material or spiritual, to inevitable causation; necessitarianism. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
7. (law) Greater utilitarian good; used in justification of a criminal act.

8. (law, in the plural) Indispensable requirements (of life).

Synonyms

• (state of being necessary): inevitability, certainty

Antonyms

• (state of being necessary): impossibility, contingency
• (something indispensable): luxury

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Further reading

• necessity in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• necessity in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• cysteines