strait-lace

[ streyt-leys ]

verb (used with object)

, strait-laced, strait-lac·ing.

1. to bind, confine, or restrain with or as if with laces.

Word History and Origins

Origin of strait-lace¹

First recorded in 1630–40; back formation from strait-laced

Example Sentences

Even in his gladness the good minister, Thomas Baldwin, of the Second Baptist Church, 309 / 263 at Boston, North End, returning from Newport, N.H., where he had happily harmonized a discordant church, could not escape the strait-lace of a C minor for his thankful hymn— From whence doth this union arise, That hatred is conquered by love.

From Project Gutenberg