Word Finder - strait

definition

A narrow channel of water connecting two larger bodies of water.

example

The Strait of Gibraltar

definition

A narrow pass, passage or street.

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A neck of land; an isthmus.

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(often in the plural) A difficult position.

example

to be in dire straits

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To confine; put to difficulties.

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To tighten.

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Narrow; restricted as to space or room; close.

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Righteous, strict.

example

to follow the strait and narrow

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Tight; close; tight-fitting.

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Close; intimate; near; familiar.

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Difficult; distressful.

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Parsimonious; stingy; mean.

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Strictly; rigorously.

Bali is separated from Lombok by a strait not more than 15 m.

In Canada the Canadian Pacific was the only transcontinental line, extending from St John, on the bay of Fundy, and from Quebec, on the river St Lawrence, to Vancouver, on the strait of Georgia, the distance from St John to Vancouver being approximately 3379 m.

From Torres Strait to Dampier Land the shelf spreads out, and connects Australia with New Guinea and the Malay Archipelago.

Previous to the existence of the strait, and across its site, there poured into Australia a wealth of Papuan forms. Along the Pacific slope of the Queensland Cordillera these found in soil and climate a congenial home.

The zoological boundary passing through the Bali Strait is called " Wallace's line," after the eminent naturalist who was its discoverer.

This element was introduced via Torres Strait, and spread down the Queensland coast to portions of the New South Wales littoral, and also round the Gulf of Carpentaria, but has never been able to obtain a hold in the more arid interior.

A service of the British India Steam Navigation Company's steamers has been established between Negapatam and Colombo through Palk Strait and this narrow passage.

North of that river the coast is low-lying and bordered by sand-lunes, to which succeed on the Strait of Dover the cliffs in the neighborhood of the port of Boulogne and the marshes and sand-dunes of Flanders, with the ports of Calais and Dunkirk, the latter the principal French port on the NOrth Sea.

Earth movements are still taking place both along Bass Strait and the Great Valley of South Australia, and apparently along the whole length of tht southern coast of Australia.

The financial strait of the French government in 1789 was extreme.

Granite and Archean schists form nearly the whole of the eastern hills from the Strait of Bonifacio southwards to the Flumendosa river, culminating in Monti del Gennargentu.

On reaching the North American coast, he proceeded northward, fixed the position of the western extremity of America and surveyed Bering Strait.

Sailing directions for Lake Michigan, Green Bay, and the Strait of Mackinac, U.S. Navy Hydrographic office publication No.

Mustafa, who had crossed the strait and fled northwards, was taken, brought to Adrianople, and hanged from a tower of the serai (1422).

Helle fell off and was drowned in the strait, which after her was called the Hellespont.

It has two important branches - at the south-west the Gulf of Aden, connecting with the Red Sea through the strait of Bab-elMandeb; and at the north-west the Gulf of Oman, connecting with the Persian Gulf.

During the same year in which De Torres sailed through the strait destined to make him famous, a little Dutch vessel called the " Duyfken," or " Dove," set sail from Bantam, in Java, on a voyage of discovery.

Bologninus Zalterius on a map of 1566, and Mercator on his famous chart of 1569, separates the two continents by a narrow strait which they call Streto de Anian, thus anticipating the discovery of Bering Strait by more than a hundred and fifty years.

The northern boundary is broken at Kertch by a strait entering into the Sea of Azov, and at the junction of the western and southern boundary is the Bosporus, which unites the Black Sea with the Mediterranean through the Sea of Marmora and the Dardanelles.

Similar currents exist in the Bosporus to those of the Strait of Gibraltar.

It divides the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico into two passages of nearly equal width, - the Strait of Florida, about I io m.

It is not connected with any portion of Europe or America except by suboceanic ridges; but in the extreme north it is separated only by a narrow strait from Ellesmere Land in the archipelago of the American continent.

Denmark Strait is the sea between it and Iceland, and the northern Norwegian Sea or Greenland Sea separates it from Spitsbergen.

On the west Davis Strait and Baffin Bay separate it from Baffin Land.

The so-called bay narrows northward into the strait successively known as Smith Sound, Kane Basin, Kennedy Channel and Robeson Channel.

A submarine ridge, about 300 fathoms deep at its deepest, unites Greenland with Iceland (across Denmark Strait), the Faeroes and Scotland.

A similar submarine ridge unites it with the Cumberland Peninsula of Baffin Land, across Davis Strait.

This island, which is separated by Waigat Strait from the Nugsuak peninsula, is o lofty, and has an area of 3005 sq.

In the same year in which Khabarov explored the Amur (1648) the Cossack Dejnev, starting from the Kolyma, sailed round the north-eastern extremity of Asia through the strait which was rediscovered and described eighty years later by Bering (1728).

Near the mouth, where the lake narrows to a strait, are the rapids which Ossian called the Falls of Lora, the ebbing and flowing tides, as they rush over the rocky bar, creating a roaring noise audible at a considerable distance.

Some time elapsed before this example found followers, but ultimately a programme was elaborated and carried out having for its basis a grand trunk line extending the whole length of the main island from Aomori on the north to Shimonoseki on the south, a distance of 1153 m.; and a continuation of the same line throughout the length of the southern island of KiQshiO, from Moji on the northwhich lies on the opposite side of the strait from Shimonosekito Kagoshima on the south, a distance of 2323/4 m.; as well as a line from Moji to Nagasaki, a distance of 1631/8 m.

The narrow strait Strdmmen separates Kvalii from the larger Seiland, whose snow-covered hills with several glaciers rise above 3500 ft., while an insular rampart of mountains, Sord, protects the strait and harbour from the open sea.

But by occupying Hormuz the Portuguese gained command of the Gulf route; and though they thrice failed to capture Aden (1513, 1517 5547), and so entirely to close the Red Sea, they almost destroyed the traffic between India and Suez by occupying Socotra and sending fleets to cruise in the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb.

The present family doubtless originated in the northern half of the Old World, whence .it effected an entrance by way of the Bering Strait route into North America, where it has always been but poorly represented in the matter of genera and species.

The island of Perim at the southern entrance of the Red Sea has been a British possession since 1857, while the promontory of Shekh Said on the Arabian side of the strait is in Turkish occupation.

To the south, separated by a strait that is fordable at low water, lies the isle of Oronsay, 21 m.

The sea is connected with the Arctic Ocean northward by Bering Strait, at the narrowest part of which East Cape (Deshnev) in Asia approaches within about 56 m.

The extreme depth of the strait approaches 50 fathoms, and it contains two small islands known as the Diomede Islands.

Haze and fogs greatly prevail in the strait, which is never free of ice.

The earliest names associated with the exploration of Bering Strait are those of Russians seeking to extend their trading facilities.

Isai Ignatiev made a voyage eastward from the Kolyma river in 1646, and Simon Dezhnev in 1648 followed his route and prolonged it, rounding the East or Dezhnev Cape, and entering the strait.

The Aleutian Islands gradually became known in the pursuit of this trade, through Michael Novidiskov (1745) and his successors, and it was not until Captain James Cook, working from the south, explored the sea and strait in 1778 that the tide of discovery set farther northward.

In fact, the country between the Matmata highlands and the strait separating Jerba from the mainland is singularly African in the character and aspect of its flora.

The Bay of Hakodate, an inlet of Tsugaru Strait, is completely land-locked, easy of access and spacious, with deep water almost up to the shore, and good holding-ground.

This last, though less numerous than its congener, seems to range over the whole of the continent, breeding in the extreme north, while it has been obtained also in the Strait of Magellan and the Falkland Islands.

There arc four narrow avenues connecting this remarkable body of water with the Pacific and the Japan Sea; that on the west, called Shirnonoseki Strait, has a width of 3000 yds., that on the south, known ai Hayarnoto Strait, is 8 m.

But it did vast damage elsewhere along the strait, notably at Reggio, Calabria, which was also totally destroyed.

Thus the connecting belt of water is narrow as compared with the extent of the oceans from north to south - Drake Strait south of South America is barely 400 m.

It has been found more convenient to take as northern boundaries the narrowest part of the straits near the Arctic circle, Bering Strait on the Pacific side, and on the Atlantic side the narrowest part of Davis Strait, and of Denmark Strait, then the shortest line from Iceland to the Faeroes, thence to the most northerly island of the Shetlands and thence to Cape Statland in Norway.

It has also been found convenient to take the boundary between the Atlantic and Pacific, as the shortest line across Drake Strait, from Cape Horn through Snow Island to Cape Gunnar, instead of the meridian of Cape Horn.