strait-laced
or straight-laced
excessively strict in conduct or morality; puritanical; prudish: strait-laced censors.
tightly laced, as a bodice.
wearing tightly laced garments.
Origin of strait-laced
1Other words from strait-laced
- strait-lac·ed·ly [streyt-ley-sid-lee, -leyst-lee], /ˈstreɪtˈleɪ sɪd li, -ˈleɪst li/, adverb
- strait-lac·ed·ness, noun
Words Nearby strait-laced
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use strait-laced in a sentence
Albert took the throne in July 2005 after the death of his strait-laced father, Prince Rainier.
There was in society, though it was not strait-laced or puritanical, a general standard of "good form."
The English Novel | George SaintsburyI have asked two gentlemen to dinner; that will be livelier, not so strait-laced; we can laugh and enjoy ourselves.
San-Cravate; or, The Messengers; Little Streams | Charles Paul de KockHe had taken the pledge from Father Mathew before he left Ireland, and had kept it faithfully; but he was not strait-laced.
The Book of the Bush | George DunderdaleMr Taylor's 'solicitous and premeditated formalism' of poetical doctrine is, it must be confessed, a little too strait-laced.
Chambers' Edinburgh Journal | Various
She stopped on the path outside the decorous strait-laced houses and put her cool gloved hand up to her burning cheek.
The Cathedral | Sir Hugh Walpole
British Dictionary definitions for strait-laced
prudish or puritanical
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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