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strict

adjectivecommon in dialogue

  • //stɹɪkt//

Strained; drawn close; tight.

adjective

  1. 1

    Strained; drawn close; tight.

    strict embrace

    strict ligature

  2. 2

    Tense; not relaxed.

    strict fiber

  3. 3

    Exact; accurate; precise; rigorously particular.

    to keep strict watch

    to pay strict attention

  4. 4

    Governed or governing by exact rules; observing exact rules; severe; rigorous.

    they are very strict in observing the Sabbath

    No one, however, would have anything to do with him, as Mr. Keeson's orders in those respects were very strict ; he had often threatened any one of his employés with instant dismissal if he found him in company with one of these touts.

  5. 5

    Rigidly interpreted; exactly limited; confined; restricted.

    to understand words in a strict sense

  6. 6

    Upright, or straight and narrow; — said of the shape of the plants or their flower clusters.

  7. 7

    Severe in discipline.

    Our teacher was always very strict. If we didn't behave, we would get punished.

    It was a very strict lesson.

  8. 8

    Irreflexive; if the described object is defined to be reflexive, that condition is overridden and replaced with irreflexive.

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin strictus, past participle of stringere (“to draw tight, bind, contract”). Doublet of strait and stretto. See stringent, strain. Related to strong.

Forms

comparative
stricter
superlative
strictest
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).