Word of the Day

: July 4, 2015

stringent

adjective STRIN-junt

What It Means

1 : tight, constricted

2 : marked by rigor, strictness, or severity

3 : marked by money scarcity and credit strictness

stringent in Context

Brandon and Sarah had to adjust to living on a stringent budget during the four months when Brandon was looking for a job.

"In an effort to address the perils of climate change, the county supervisors voted 3-2 to adopt the most stringent greenhouse-gas-emission restrictions of any county in California…." - Nick Welsh, Santa Barbara (California) Independent, May 21, 2015

Did You Know?

Words that are synonymous with stringent include rigid, which implies uncompromising inflexibility ("rigid rules of conduct"), and rigorous, which suggests hardship and difficulty ("the rigorous training of firefighters"). Also closely related is strict, which emphasizes undeviating conformity to rules, standards, or requirements ("strict enforcement of the law"). Stringent usually involves severe, tight restrictions or limitations ("the college has stringent admissions rules"). That's logical. After all, rigorous and rigid are both derived from rigēre, the Latin word meaning "to be stiff," and stringent and strict developed from the Latin verb stringere, meaning "to bind tight."