| English Dictionary |
STRICT
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
| IPA (US): |  |
Dictionary entry overview: What does strict mean?
• STRICT (adjective)
The adjective STRICT has 5 senses:
1. rigidly accurate; allowing no deviation from a standard
2. (of rules) stringently enforced
3. characterized by strictness, severity, or restraint
4. incapable of compromise or flexibility
5. severe and unremitting in making demands
Familiarity information: STRICT used as an adjective is common.
Dictionary entry details
| Declension: comparative and superlative |
Superlative: strictest
Sense 1
Meaning:
Rigidly accurate; allowing no deviation from a standard
Synonyms:
rigorous; strict
Context example:
a strict vegetarian
Similar:
exact (marked by strict and particular and complete accordance with fact)
Derivation:
strictness (conscientious attention to rules and details)
Sense 2
Meaning:
(of rules) stringently enforced
Synonyms:
hard-and-fast; strict
Context example:
hard-and-fast rules
Similar:
invariable (not liable to or capable of change)
Derivation:
strictness (conscientious attention to rules and details)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Characterized by strictness, severity, or restraint
Synonyms:
nonindulgent; strict
Similar:
austere; stern (of a stern or strict bearing or demeanor; forbidding in aspect)
blue; puritanic; puritanical (morally rigorous and strict)
corrective; disciplinal; disciplinary (designed to promote discipline)
monkish (befitting a monk; inclined to self-denial)
renunciant; renunciative; self-abnegating; self-denying (used especially of behavior)
self-disciplined; self-restraining (used of nonindulgent persons)
severe; spartan (unsparing and uncompromising in discipline or judgment)
Also:
abstemious (sparing in consumption of especially food and drink)
Derivation:
strictness (uncompromising resolution)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Incapable of compromise or flexibility
Synonyms:
rigid; strict
Similar:
intolerant (unwilling to tolerate difference of opinion)
Derivation:
strictness (uncompromising resolution)
Sense 5
Meaning:
Severe and unremitting in making demands
Synonyms:
Context example:
strict standards
Similar:
demanding (requiring more than usually expected or thought due; especially great patience and effort and skill)
Derivation:
strictness (uncompromising resolution)
Context examples
The man withdrew, and we went into a strict examination of the patient.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
To the end of turning to profit the talents which God has committed to your keeping; and of which He will surely one day demand a strict account.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
As to Miss Murdstone, for I had alluded to her in the letter, I respect that lady's vigilance, and feel obliged to her; but she has strict charge to avoid the subject.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
He, who had ever boasted of being an Elliot, and whose feelings, as to connection, were only too strict to suit the unfeudal tone of the present day.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
Again they parted—but Eleanor was called back in half a minute to receive a strict charge against taking her friend round the abbey till his return.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
And I believe, upon a strict inquiry, those quarrels might be shown as ill-grounded among us as they are among that people.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
You may know the strict principles of her family.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Still, the researchers fear an increase in its use in years to come, since its regulation is not as strict as that of BPA.
(Purchase receipts with easily erasable ink contain cancer- and infertility inducing substances, University of Granada)
Such a potent system requires strict regulation to avoid host injury.
(Complement Component Gene, NCI Thesaurus)
It is true that we had made a strict resolution against firing, but if it seemed to them that I might be in danger they would not hesitate.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
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