straiten
Americanverb (used with object)
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to put into difficulties, especially financial ones.
His obligations had straitened him.
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to restrict in range, extent, amount, pecuniary means, etc.
Poverty straitens one's way of living.
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Archaic.
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to make narrow.
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to confine within narrow limits.
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verb
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(tr; usually passive) to embarrass or distress, esp financially
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(tr) to limit, confine, or restrict
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archaic to make or become narrow
Etymology
Origin of straiten
Explanation
To straiten is to restrict financially, the way having your rent increase can straiten your circumstances if your salary stays the same. The verb straiten is an old-fashioned one, but it's one way to describe a situation that's been diminished or constrained, usually because of money problems. This meaning derives from an earlier definition, "to restrict or make narrow," from strait, "narrow." If you find your circumstances narrowed by a lack of finances, you'll know what this word is all about.
Vocabulary lists containing straiten
Pygmalion
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Long Walk to Freedom
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"A Day's Work," Excerpt from "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
His most celebrated saying was, " Be constant in meditation on death: if thou bein straitened case 'twill enlarge it, and if in affluence 'twill straiten it upon thee."
From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 02 by Sir Richard Francis Burton
That I abandon places when I like them not, Unless Death chain the soul and straiten her career?
From A Literary History of the Arabs by Reynold Nicholson
It is known that statutes made, not to open and enlarge, but on fair grounds to straiten proofs, require two witnesses in cases of high treason.
From The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 11 (of 12) by Edmund Burke
Oft times mischance shall straiten noble breast, viii.
From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 10 by Sir Richard Francis Burton
To the Editers of The Cawcashin: Surs:—Didn't I tell you that, as soon as I got here, I would straiten things out?
From Letters of Major Jack Downing, of the Downingville Militia by Seba Smith
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
