strait-laced, a.
(ˌstreɪtˈleɪst)
[f. strait adv. + laced ppl. a.]
† 1. Wearing stays or bodice tightly laced. Obs.
| 1626 Moryson Shaks. Europe (1903) 485 The [Irish] wemen generally are not straight laced..and the greatest part are not laced at all. 1650 Bulwer Anthropomet. Pref., No Maid here's handsome thought, unless she can With her short Palms her streight-lac't body span. 1693 Locke Educ. §11 We should as certainly have no perfect children born, as we have few well-shaped that are strait-laced. 1698 Fryer Acc. E. India & P. 394 A Plump Lass being in more esteem than our Slender and Strait-laced Maidens. |
| transf. 1648 J. Beaumont Psyche ix. lii, The strait-lac'd Insect's slender Brood could ne'r Shrink up themselves into a scanter dress. |
b. Of a bodice, etc.: Tightly laced. rare.
Cf. quot. c 1430, where strait laced is not a compound, but two words.
| [c 1430 Lydg. Min. Poems (Percy Soc.) 201 Hire crowpe doth the semys shrede, Whan they so streyght lasyd been.] 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. xviii. IV. 148 It was never, he [Child] declared with much spirit, found politic to put trade into straitlaced bodices. |
2. fig. † a. Of things: Narrow in range or scope.
| 1549 Coverdale etc. Erasm. Par. 1 Tim. ii. 1–7 Lest Christian loue shoulde appeare to be but a straite laced loue. 1579 G. Harvey Two Other Lett. (1580) 64 He might haue spared..that same restrictiue, & streightlaced terme, Precisely. 1583 Golding Calvin on Deut. vi. 4–9. 272 But this exposition is too straite laced, and attaineth not to the verie meaning of Moses. 1686 Goad Celest. Bodies i. xi. 41 Natural Causes are not so straight-lac'd. |
† b. Of persons: Shut up within oneself, uncommunicative, morose, unsympathetic. Obs.
| 1546 J. Heywood Prov. i. xi. (1867) 31 He is so hy in thinstep, and so streight laste, That pryde and couetyse withdrawth all repaste. 1549 Coverdale etc. Erasm. Par. Ephes. Prol. {fatpara} iiij, Whan were maisters more vnlouyng or strayterlaced to their seruauntes? 1571 Golding Calvin on Ps. xxvii. 10. 102 All mortal men who are of nature nigardly & streitlaced [L. qui natura maligni sunt ac restricti]. 1579 Lyly Euphues (Arb.) 54 Commonly if they be adorned with beautie, they be straight laced, and made so high in the insteppe, that they disdaine them most that most desire them. 1691 Norris Pract. Disc. 297 Is it then possible for a Man seriously..to contemplate the..Goodness of God, and..to be selfish and strait-laced, niggardly and covetous? |
† c. Obstinate, indisposed to yield; grudging in gifts or concessions. Obs.
| 1560 J. Daus tr. Sleidane's Comm. xii. 162 b, He requested them, that they woulde not be ouer streight lased, but to graunt to so muche as they myght with a saufe conscience. 1579–80 North Plutarch, Galba (1595) 1113 Titus Iunius..onely made the Emperour straight laced to all others, whilest he himselfe tooke vnreasonably of all men. 1588 J. Udall Diotrephes (Arb.) 23 If it be not vnreasonable, you may assure your selfe of it, for you know, that I haue neuer bin strait laced againste you, or anye of your friends. 1600 Holland Livy xxii. lix. 468 Our fathers also, notwithstanding they were most streightlaced, and hardly brought to capitulat and compound for peace, yet sent Embassadours..to redeeme their Captives. 1601 F. Godwin Bps. of Eng. 523 The Pope was somewhat strait laced in admitting him. |
d. Of persons, their habits, opinions, etc.: Excessively rigid or scrupulous in matters of conduct; narrow or over-precise in one's rules of practice or moral judgement; prudish.
| 1554 T. Martin Marr. Priestes vi. K iiij, He had to doe with certaine holy and straite lased heretikes, whiche denied it to be lawful for a Christian man after his baptisme to retourne to his wife. 1598 Dallington Meth. Trav. V 2, They of the Reformed Religion may not Dance, being an exercise against which their strait-laced Ministers much inueigh. 1639 J. Saltmarsh Pract. Policie 175 Doe not alwaies stand upon the nice puntilioes..of state and place..; these that doe not observe this, are a little too strait laced for businesse either civill or religious. 1659 in Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc. (N.S.) XVII. 114 If hee or any man else in this place were soe straite laced that they could nott endure such thinges [as a market on Sunday], they might depart the towne. 1688 Shadwell Sqr. Alsatia iii. iv, I am not streight-lac'd; but when I was young, I ne'er knew any thing gotten by wenching, but duels, claps, and bastards. 1705 Hickeringill Priest-Cr. ii. ii. 16 This strait-lac't Doctrine seems contrary to the Justice, Mercy and Holiness of God. 1707 Filmer Def. Plays A 6 b, Had these strait-lac'd Gentlemen once gain'd their Point against Plays. 1857 Gladstone Glean. VI. lii. 81 Gibbon, no straightlaced judge,..records his judgment [etc.]. 1870 R. Brough Marston Lynch xxix. 311 They have such ridiculously strait-laced notions. 1884 Sala Journ. due South i. i. (1887) 22 At no time during the period..have the print-sellers of the gay capital been very straight-laced. 1904 L. Stephen Eng. Lit. & Soc. 18th C. iv. 162 Richardson seemed to be a narrow, straitlaced preacher. |
† e. Hampered by narrow rules of procedure.
| 1766 ? G. Grenville Sp. agst. Susp. Prerogative (ed. 3) 14 But if that strange thing should fall out, our constitution is not so strait laced as to let a nation die or be stifled, rather than it should be helped by any but the proper officers. 1791 Jefferson Writ. (1830) IV. 527 Will Congress be too strait⁓laced to carry the constitution into honest effect? |
Hence ˈstraitˌlacedness.
| 1876 M. & Fr. Collins Vill. Comedy II. xii. 150 This division of the people led in time to a general appearance of priggishness and straitlacedness in the village. 1903 A. M{supc}Neill Egregious English 38 Their assumption of morality and puritanical straitlacedness is admirable. |