What's the difference between narrow and straiten?

Narrow


Definition:

  • (superl.) Of little breadth; not wide or broad; having little distance from side to side; as, a narrow board; a narrow street; a narrow hem.
  • (superl.) Of little extent; very limited; circumscribed.
  • (superl.) Having but a little margin; having barely sufficient space, time, or number, etc.; close; near; -- with special reference to some peril or misfortune; as, a narrow shot; a narrow escape; a narrow majority.
  • (superl.) Limited as to means; straitened; pinching; as, narrow circumstances.
  • (superl.) Contracted; of limited scope; illiberal; bigoted; as, a narrow mind; narrow views.
  • (superl.) Parsimonious; niggardly; covetous; selfish.
  • (superl.) Scrutinizing in detail; close; accurate; exact.
  • (superl.) Formed (as a vowel) by a close position of some part of the tongue in relation to the palate; or (according to Bell) by a tense condition of the pharynx; -- distinguished from wide; as e (eve) and / (f/d), etc., from i (ill) and / (f/t), etc. See Guide to Pronunciation, / 13.
  • (n.) A narrow passage; esp., a contracted part of a stream, lake, or sea; a strait connecting two bodies of water; -- usually in the plural; as, The Narrows of New York harbor.
  • (v. t.) To lessen the breadth of; to contract; to draw into a smaller compass; to reduce the width or extent of.
  • (v. t.) To contract the reach or sphere of; to make less liberal or more selfish; to limit; to confine; to restrict; as, to narrow one's views or knowledge; to narrow a question in discussion.
  • (v. t.) To contract the size of, as a stocking, by taking two stitches into one.
  • (v. i.) To become less broad; to contract; to become narrower; as, the sea narrows into a strait.
  • (v. i.) Not to step out enough to the one hand or the other; as, a horse narrows.
  • (v. i.) To contract the size of a stocking or other knit article, by taking two stitches into one.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The PSB dioxygenase system displayed a narrow substrate range: none of 18 sulphonated or non-sulphonated analogues of PSB showed significant substrate-dependent O2 uptake.
  • (2) Comparison of developmental series of D. merriami and T. bottae revealed that the decline of the artery in the latter species is preceded by a greater degree of arterial coarctation, or narrowing, as it passes though the developing stapes.
  • (3) This promotion of repetitive activity by the introduction of additional potassium channels occurred up to an "optimal" value beyond which a further increase in paranodal potassium permeability narrowed the range of currents with a repetitive response.
  • (4) In all immunized rabbits the antisera obtained with the 7 alpha-derivative had a higher affinity and a narrower specificity than the antiserum obtained with the 7 beta-derivative.
  • (5) That is, he believes, to look at massively difficult, interlocking problems through too narrow a lens.
  • (6) Photograph: AP Reasons for wavering • State relies on coal-fired electricity • Poor prospects for wind power • Conservative Democrat • Represents conservative district in conservative state and was elected on narrow margins Campaign support from fossil fuel interests in 2008 • $93,743 G K Butterfield (North Carolina) GK Butterfield, North Carolina.
  • (7) Their narrowed processes pass at a common site through the muscle layer and above this layer again slightly widen and project above the neighbouring tegument.
  • (8) These patients did not have narrow anterior chamber angles preoperatively, and several were aphakix with surgical iris colobomas.
  • (9) The linewidths of the methionine Cepsilon resonances are narrowed by increasing temperature according to an Arrhenius energy of activation of nearly 3 kcal.
  • (10) The detergent lauryl maltoside abolishes respiratory control and proton ejection by cytochrome c oxidase-containing proteoliposomes over a narrow concentration range.
  • (11) Per-rotational nystagmus was recorded in rabbits with unilaterally narrowed vertebral arteries or following unilateral cervical sympathectomies.
  • (12) However, the narrow range of the ED50 suggests relatively little variation in the response of the different isolates in vivo and similarly small variation was also noted in some of the tests in vitro.
  • (13) Eight patients had glaucoma only in one eye; three narrow-angle glaucoma, three primary open-angle glaucoma and two secondary glaucoma.
  • (14) In the fifth case the vein was too narrow to allow catheterization.
  • (15) It was found that within the dorsal part of the well known pressor area there is a narrow strip, 2.5 mm lateral from the mid line, starting ventral to the inferior colliculus and ending in the medulla close to the floor of the IV ventricle, from which vasodilatation in skeletal muscles is selectively obtained.
  • (16) Each border was within a region of 11 nucleotides and gave rise to a narrow size range (1248-1261 nucleotides) for the population of 22 subgenomic DNAs.
  • (17) These factors include narrowing of septal arteries and the artery to the atrioventricular node, preservation of fetal anatomy with dispersion in the atrioventricular node and His bundle, fibrosis of the sinus node, clefts in the septum, multiple atrioventricular pathways and massive myocardial infarction.
  • (18) Time suggests that the FBI inquiry has been extended from a relatively narrow look at alleged malpractices by News Corp in America into a more general inquiry into whether the company used possibly illegal strongarm tactics to browbeat rival firms, following allegations of computer hacking made by retail advertising company Floorgraphics.
  • (19) These three activities, appearing within a narrow range of molecular weights, different from those of other known lymphokines, suggest the existence of a distinct class of lymphokine mediators with the common function of influencing functional properties of tumor cells.
  • (20) The narrow intercellular ridge is smooth, whereas the epithelial cells have small cytoplasmic knobs between the cilia.

Straiten


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To make strait; to make narrow; hence, to contract; to confine.
  • (v. t.) To make tense, or tight; to tighten.
  • (v. t.) To restrict; to distress or embarrass in respect of means or conditions of life; -- used chiefly in the past participle; -- as, a man straitened in his circumstances.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In his enforced absence following a dramatic fall from grace that symbolises many of the ills of football’s culture of entitlement, France will be hoping football can again bring the nation together in the most straitened of times.
  • (2) Ai Weiwei , the big man of Beijing, has spent years discovering pockets of freedom in the most straitened circumstances, resisting every effort by the Chinese government to shut him down.
  • (3) It’s a unique place.” It may say something about Bradford’s straitened circumstances that, whereas some city leaders hold court from palatial offices, the leader of Bradford district council’s HQ is comically modest.
  • (4) In such straitened circumstances, accepting more pupils may seem an obvious way to generate extra cash.
  • (5) "It's vital that in straitened economic times, the UK government does not make the grave mistake of making cuts to higher education and research funding or spreading limited funds too thinly," the foreword says.
  • (6) Even if the company laboured under financial constraints that sometimes made getting the paper out each night seem like a Sisyphean miracle, I could never really regret them, selfishly speaking: I had nothing more lavish with which to compare the circumstances, and if things hadn’t been so straitened I never would have had a shot at the comical series of overpromotions that defined my time there.
  • (7) Lectures from Brussels on the need to cut public spending and balance budgets, given the desperately straitened times, have added insult to injury.
  • (8) The first option is understandable, but the second is essential in the straitened circumstances that will cast a long shadow over public services for the foreseeable future.
  • (9) The reforms were about the survival of the NHS in straitened times.
  • (10) It is almost inconceivable that in these straitened times local authorities, whose budgets have been decimated, could launch their own school building programme without government support.
  • (11) It’s for people like us.” I found this difficult to comprehend given our straitened circumstances, but I have never forgotten the message.
  • (12) The announcement is designed to show that even in straitened economic times the government is committed to pressing ahead with radical plans to promote economic growth.
  • (13) So when people have close contact with schools and find they are actually brilliant, relief and surprise combine to create the impression that, in spite of straitened conditions, the government is doing quite well.
  • (14) Other companies, from Hull Truck to London’s Young Vic – also looking for ways to cope in increasingly straitened times – are joining the Rep to mount co-productions.
  • (15) (He is accustomed, having lived as a Jew under nazism and a Pole under communism, to straitened scenarios.)
  • (16) But London, even in these straitened times, not only has money available to keep cultural spending at the same level, it can actually increase it.
  • (17) Vekaric said Mladic had suffered increasingly straitened circumstances since 2006, when he narrowly evaded arrest in the village of Ljuba.
  • (18) Chelsea's owner was also angered by Arnesen's ill-advised decision to discuss the owner's straitened finances in public.
  • (19) In spite of the family's straitened circumstances, her application and quick intelligence advanced her steadily.
  • (20) The privation that contributed to Balan’s death didn’t occur in the straitened circumstance of a refugee camp, or on the borderlands of a war-torn region.

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