straight and narrow, the

Idioms  

1. The honest and upright way of living, as in He led a wild life when he was young, but he's been on the straight and narrow for some years. This expression is widely though to come from confusion of straight, “not crooked,” with strait, “narrow,” owing to a misinterpretation of a passage from the New Testament: “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life” (Matthew 7:14). The current phrase dates only from the first half of the 1800s.

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Example Sentences

“The lawsuit is all about accountability and making sure that the discrimination, the presumption of guilt, does not continue to become a pattern of habit when dealing with people who are productive citizens who don’t have a criminal history and who do all they can to stay on the straight and narrow,” the doctor’s attorney, Alesha Brown, told The Associated Press.

From Washington Times

“Without American forces helping to keep Iraq on the straight and narrow, the authors suggest, it is likely to slip back into tyranny or civil strife or both,” Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose wrote in the New York Times.

From Washington Post

Ironically, by not making sure Co-op Bank kept to the straight and narrow, the FSA has succeeded in tainting all mutuals, even the better-run ones.

From BBC

Often it will be the former offender gone straight who is best placed to steer the young prisoner back onto the straight and narrow - the former gang member best placed to prevent younger members from rushing straight back to rejoin the gang on the streets.

From BBC

Without American forces helping to keep Iraq on the straight and narrow, the authors suggest, it is likely to slip back into tyranny or civil strife or both.

From New York Times