# strict

Pronunciation: say "STRIKT" /stɹɪkt/

## Adjective

1. Demanding that exact rules be obeyed and allowing little freedom; severe and rigorous in enforcing standards.
   - Simple: Following exact rules, or making others follow them, with little room for mistakes.
   - _The academy enforces strict rules on attendance and conduct._
   - _Her parents were strict, but they explained the reason behind every limit._
2. Severe and unyielding when it comes to discipline and correcting behavior.
   - Simple: Quick to punish and not willing to let bad behavior slide.
   - _The principal kept strict discipline throughout the school._
   - _Soldiers under a strict commander learn to follow orders without question._
3. Exact, accurate, and rigorously precise in every particular.
   - Simple: Exact and precise, with no room for loose or rough meanings.
   - _Under the strict meaning of the law, even small gifts count as payments._
   - _The report uses strict definitions so that no figure can be misread._
4. Interpreted in a rigid way and kept within exact, narrow limits.
   - Simple: Held to a narrow, exact meaning, with no wider reading allowed.
   - _The contract sets strict boundaries on how the funds may be spent._
   - _Judges who favor a strict reading refuse to look beyond the text itself._
5. Tense rather than loose or relaxed.
   - Simple: Tight and tense, not loose or relaxed.
6. Strained and drawn close; pulled tight.
   - Simple: Pulled tight and drawn closely together.
   - _The surgeon tied a strict ligature above the wound, cinching the vessel shut._
   - _Locked in a strict embrace, the two wrestlers strained chest to chest._
7. In mathematics, describing a relation that is irreflexive, so that no element stands in the relation to itself.
   - Simple: In math, describing an order or comparison where nothing counts as related to itself.
   - _A strict partial order excludes the case where an element relates to itself._
   - _Replacing ≤ with < turns the relation into a strict one._
8. In botany, upright or straight and narrow in form, said of plants or their flower clusters.
   - Simple: In plants, growing straight up in a narrow, upright shape.
   - _Botanists described the species as strict, with stems held straight and narrow._
   - _The strict flower cluster rose in a tight, upright column._

## Origin

Borrowed from Latin strictus, the past participle of stringere ("to draw tight, bind, contract"). It is a doublet of strait and stretto, and is related to stringent, strain, and strong.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/strict (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).