strait

strait

1. 

a. a narrow channel of the sea linking two larger areas of sea

b. (capital as part of a name)

2. Archaic a narrow place or passage Archaic

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

strait

[strāt]

(geography)

A neck of land.

A narrow waterway connecting two larger bodies of water.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Strait

 

a relatively narrow stretch of water separating land areas and connecting water basins or portions of water basins. In typical cases, straits have their own particular hydrologic regimes. This differentiates them from passes, usually in archipelagoes of small islands. The hydrologic regime of a strait is determined by the features of the water that pass through the strait and depends on the regimes of the bodies of water or parts of bodies of water that the strait connects and the length, width, and depth of the strait. The maximum dimensions of a strait are a length of approximately 1,670 km (Mozambique Channel), a width of 950 km (Drake Passage), and a depth of 5,840 m (Drake Passage).

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.