释义 |
strait-lace, v. [Back-formation from strait-laced a.] trans. and intr. (for refl.) To lace tightly, confine. Hence strait-lacing vbl. n. and ppl. a. Also strait-lacer (in quot. fig.).
1636W. Durham in Ann. Dubrensia (1877) 10 Then they repine at their streight-lacing shore, Prohibiting their passage to his dore. 1662J. Glanvill Lux Orient. vi. 69 Is not this to slurr his goodnesse! and to straight-lace the divine beneficence? 1675H. Woolley Gentlew. Comp. 80 Endeavouring by strait-lacing to be as slender in the middle as the Strand-May-pole is tall in its height. 1693Locke Educ. §11, I have seen so many Instances of Children receiving great harm from strait-lacing. 1700Congreve Way of World iv. v, I denounce against all strait-Laceing, Squeezing for a Shape, 'till you mold my boy's head like a Sugar⁓loaf. 1776Sir J. Reynolds Seven Disc. R. Acad. (1778) 313 The strait lacing of the English ladies. 1811Lamb On Trag. Shaks. Wks. (1876) 563 How cruelly this operates upon the mind, to have its free conceptions thus cramped and pressed down to the measure of a strait-lacing actuality, may be judged from [etc.]. 1820T. Mitchell Aristoph. I. p. xxx, A course of straight-lacing and cool diet was bringing her a little more into compass. 1913J. L. Paton J. B. Paton xvii. 309 A well-meaning straitlacer. |