n. 1. A restraint, limit, or restriction: strictures placed on free assembly; strictures against food in the library; the strictures of traditional gender roles. 2. An abnormal narrowing of a bodily duct or passage. 3. An adverse remark or criticism: "my writing ... which he praises sufficiently to give his strictures a good deal of force" (Virginia Woolf). [Middle English, an abnormal narrowing of a bodily part, from Late Latin strictūra, contraction, from Latin strictus, past participle of stringere, to draw tight; see STRICT.] |
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