Word.ws English Dictionary

strait-laced

strait-laced adjective: bound with stays. Also the alternative spelling of straight-laced.

Adjective

strait-laced (comparative more strait-laced, superlative most strait-laced)

  1. Bound with stays.
    • And if women were themselves to frame the bodies of their children in their wombs, as they 4 often endeavour to mend their shapes when they are out, we should as certainly have no perfect children born, as we have few well-shaped that are strait-laced, or much tampered with.1809, John Locke, Some thoughts concerning education, page 16
    • Juryman. My lord, I desire to know whether her stays were laced? Dell. Yes, she was laced. Mr. Cowper. If I take you right, you say she was strait-laced? Dell. Her stays were laced.1816, Thomas Bayly Howell, A Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors

Also used as

strait-laced is also the alternative spelling of straight-laced.

Forms of strait-laced

comparativemore strait-laced
superlativemost strait-laced

Questions about strait-laced

What does strait-laced mean?
Strait-laced means bound with stays.
What part of speech is strait-laced?
Strait-laced is an adjective.

Words near strait-laced in the dictionary

  1. Strait of Tiran
  2. strait-handed
  3. strait-handedness
  4. strait-jacket
  5. strait-jackets
  6. strait-laced
  7. strait-waistcoat
  8. strait-waistcoats
  9. straited
  10. straiten
  11. straitened

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: strait-laced (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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