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Jan 20, 2016
This week’s theme
Clothing terms used metaphorically

This week’s words
brass hat
sackcloth
straitlaced
sansculotte
bootleg

straitlaced
“Fashion before Ease - or - A good Constitution sacrificed for a Fantastick Form”
Thomas Paine tightening Britannia’s laces
Cartoon: James Gillray, 1793 (LOC)
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

straitlaced or straight-laced

PRONUNCIATION:
(STRAYT-layst)

MEANING:
adjective: Excessively strict, rigid, old-fashioned, or prudish.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Middle English streit (narrow), from Old French estreit, from Latin strictus, past participle of stringere (to bind, draw tight) + laqueus (noose). Earliest documented use: 1630.

USAGE:
“Aren’t they the rather dull, unimaginative, straitlaced characters who keep their noses constantly buried in rule books?”
Your Stars; The Gold Coast Bulletin (Southport, Australia); Oct 13, 2015.

See more usage examples of straitlaced in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster's autobiography. -Federico Fellini, film director, and writer (20 Jan 1920-1993)

What they say

“Garg works in the great tradition of Wilfred Funk and Norman Lewis... Garg, however, is more fun.”

Minneapolis Star Tribune

More articles

Anu Garg on words

“Overall, the universe’s apostrophe store stays in balance. It seems our linguistic world was intelligently designed -- for every gratuitous apostrophe there’s an instance where it’s omitted.”

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