v. [Back-formation from STRAIT-LACED a.] trans. and intr. (for refl.) To lace tightly, confine. Hence Strait-lacing vbl. sb. and ppl. a. Also Strait-lacer (in quot. fig.).
1636. W. Durham, in Ann. Dubrensia (1877), 10. Then they repine at their streight-lacing shore, Prohibiting their passage to his dore.
1662. Glanvill, Lux Orient., vi. 69. Is not this to slurr his goodnesse! and to straight-lace the divine beneficence?
1675. Hannah 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.
1693. Locke, Educ., § 11. I have seen so many Instances of Children receiving great harm from strait-lacing.
1700. Congreve, 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.
1776. Sir J. Reynolds, Seven Disc. R. Acad. (1778), 313. The strait lacing of the English ladies.
1811. Lamb, 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.].
1820. T. Mitchell, Aristoph., I. p. xxx. A course of straight-lacing and cool diet was bringing her a little more into compass.
1913. J. L. Paton, J. B. Paton, xvii. 309. A well-meaning straitlacer.
