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straitlaced

/ˈstreɪtleɪst/
IPA guide

Someone who's straitlaced is very prim and proper. Your straitlaced parents will be alarmed if you dye your hair purple and drop out of school to become a mime.

The adjective straitlaced, which can also be spelled strait-laced or straightlaced, is a synonym for "uptight" or "stuffy." The general idea is that straitlaced people are too rigid or narrow in their thinking, based on the old-fashioned adjective strait, "tight," and the fashion of lacing women's dresses extremely tightly. Phrases like "strait and narrow" and the word "straitjacket" share this "tight" root with straitlaced.

Definitions of straitlaced
  1. adjective
    exaggeratedly proper
    “my straitlaced Aunt Anna doesn't approve of my miniskirts”
    proper
    marked by suitability or rightness or appropriateness
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