Middle English streit, < Old French estreit tight, close, narrow, also as n., narrow or tight place, strait of the sea, distress (modern French étroit narrow) = Provençal estreit, Spanish estrecho, Portuguese estreito, Italian stretto < Latin strictus (see strict adj.) past participle of stringĕre to tighten, bind tightly: see strain v.1, stringent adj.
A. adj.
I. In physical senses: Tight, narrow.
1.a. Of a garment, etc.: Tight-fitting, narrow. Obs. exc. dial.
b. Of bonds, a knot: Tightly drawn. Obs.
c. Of an embrace: close. Obs.
d. Tense, not lax. Obs.
e. Of the chest: Constricted, ‘tight’. Of the breath: Difficult, ‘short’. Obs.
2.a. Scanty or inadequate in spatial capacity; affording little room; narrow. Of bounds, limits: Narrow. Now rare exc. in too strait.
b. Of a place of confinement. lit. and fig. Obs.
3.a. Of a way, passage, or channel: So narrow as to make transit difficult. Now rare in lit. sense.
b. fig. and in figurative context. Now arch. after Bible use, esp. as strait and narrow (ellipt.), a conventional, limited procedure or way of life.
4.a. Having little breadth or width; narrow. Obs.
b. Of cloth, ribbon, etc.: Narrow. Obs.
II. Strict, rigorous.
5.a. Of conditions, sufferings, punishment, etc.: Pressing hardly, severe, rigorous. Obs.
b. Of modes of living, diet, etc.: Involving hardship or privation; severely regulated. Obs.
c. Of a religious order, its rules, etc., also of a sect: Rigorous, strict. Obs.
6.a. Of a person, an agent: Severe, stern, strict, exacting in actions or dealings. Obs.
b. Rigorous in principles; strict or scrupulous in morality or religious observance. arch.
7.a. Of a commandment, law, penalty, vow: Stringent, strict, allowing no evasion. Obs. exc. arch.
b. Of a legal instrument: Stringently worded, peremptory. Obs.
8.a. Of actions, proceedings: Conducted with strictness. Obs.
b. Of guard, watch, imprisonment: Rigorous, strict. Cf. A. 2b. Now rare.
c. Of a siege: Close. Obs.
III. Limited in scope, degree, or amount.
9. Scanty, poor in degree. Obs.
10.a. Of fortune, means, circumstances: Limited so as to cause hardship or inconvenience; inadequate. Obs.
b. Of a person: In want of, straitened for. Obs. exc. dial.
11. Of words: Limited in application or signification. Obs. exc. dial.
12. Strictly specified, exact, precise, definite; esp. of an account, exactly rendered. Obs.
13. Of friendship, alliance, etc.: Close, intimate. Now rare.
14.a. Reluctant and chary in giving; close, stingy, illiberal. Obs.
"In 1948, through the exertions of people like James Bryant Conant, the president of Harvard, the Educational Testing Service went into business, and standardized testing (the S.A.T. and the A.C.T.) soon became the virtually universal method for picking out the most intelligent students in the high-school population, regardless of their family background, and getting them into the higher-education system. Conant regarded higher education as a limited social resource, and he wanted to make more strait the gate. Testing insured that only people who deserved to go to college did. The fact that Daddy went no longer sufficed."
- Louis Menand, "Live and learn: why we have college", 6 June 2011 The New Yorker
I'm going with "rigorous" here.
This appears to be an allusion to "Invictus", by William Ernest Henley:
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