straight-ahead

[streyt-uh-hed]

adjective

1. not deviating from what is usual or expected; conventional or traditional; standard.

   a straight-ahead novel with a happy ending.

Word History and Origins

Origin of straight-ahead¹

First recorded in 1830–40

Example Sentences

“He knew I was intrigued by certain things I haven’t played and I have not played a character like this, sort of a straight-ahead government employee, a governor of a state, so that immediately interested me,” the actor says on the phone from Los Angeles.

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He was not a musician himself but he loved jazz — straight-ahead and Dixieland — and swing most of all.

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As to why the music itself seems to have caught on even after the revivalists bands like Jet, the Strokes and the Strypes have come and gone, he attributes it to the timeless, straight-ahead nature of the music.

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Hochman laughs when describing the 1940s hero who seems to share his straight-ahead approach to the job.

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On exploring her gender identity, Lorde says she felt "so trapped and so tight in this very kind of straight-ahead femininity."

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Related Words

• continuous