Both Uses of
strait
in
Bleak House
- Mrs. Pardiggle being as clear that the only one infallible course was her course of pouncing upon the poor and applying benevolence to them like a strait-waistcoat; as Miss Wisk was that the only practical thing for the world was the emancipation of woman from the thraldom of her tyrant, man.†
Chpt 28-30 (definition 1) *
- Still England has been some weeks in the dismal strait of having no pilot (as was well observed by Sir Leicester Dedlock) to weather the storm; and the marvellous part of the matter is that England has not appeared to care very much about it, but has gone on eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage as the old world did in the days before the flood.
Chpt 40-42 (definition 2) *strait = bad or difficult situation
Definitions:
-
(1) (strait as in: Strait of Hormuz) a narrow channel of the sea joining two larger bodies of water
-
(2) (strait as in: put her in a tough strait) a bad or difficult situation