the.com/strait
a sea forced through a needle's eye, where empires lined up to fight over the queue.
means A narrow channel of water connecting two larger seas or bodies of water; also, by extension, a position of difficulty or hardship (often as 'dire straits').
from From the Old French 'estreit,' meaning narrow or tight, which descends from the Latin 'strictus' — the past participle of 'stringere,' to draw tight or bind. That same Latin root pulls taut a whole family of words: 'strict,' 'stringent,' 'constrict.' So a strait is literally a tightening of the sea, and to be 'in dire straits' is to feel life squeeze you the same way water gets squeezed between two shores. Note the spelling cousin 'straight' (meaning direct, unbending) is a separate word entirely, from Old English 'streht' — the two are often confused but only distantly, if at all, related.
- chokepoint
- Hormuz funnels roughly a fifth of global oil
- name origin
- shares roots with strict, straitjacket, dire straits
- narrow brute
- Strait of Gibraltar squeezes two continents 13 km apart
- current chaos
- tidal flows can rip through faster than rivers
- strategic prize
- controlling one means controlling who sails
strait of hormuz — connects persian gulf to gulf of oman, 21 miles wide, 21% of world's oil passes through
strait of malacca — between malaysia and indonesia, 550 miles long, busiest shipping lane in asia
english channel — separates england from france, 21 miles at narrowest point
bering strait — separates russia from alaska, 53 miles wide, only 2.4 miles at closest point