stricture

noun strictures

1. countable, plural normally, uncountable A rule restricting behaviour or action. To his eyes it had no attraction; it savoured of simony, and was likely to bring down upon him harder and more deserved strictures than any he had yet received: he positively declined to become vicar of Puddingdale under any circumstances.

   Similar: constraint, restriction, restraint

2. countable, uncountable A general state of restrictiveness on behavior, action, or ideology. I just couldn't take the stricture of that place a single day more.

   Similar: constraint, repression, suppression

3. countable, uncountable A sternly critical remark or review. When he read the poem to his parents, upon its conclusion, both were much impressed by it, though his father made severe strictures upon its lack of polish, its terminal inconcision, and its vagueness of thought.

   Similar: animadversion, criticism, criticization, critique, dressing-down, handbagging, slam, stricture

4. countable, uncountable Abnormal narrowing of a canal or duct in the body. Even in the brief moment of his entrance into the magnificence of Anthony Harding's home he had felt a strange little stricture of the throat—a choking, half-suffocating sensation.
5. countable, obsolete, uncountable Strictness. a man of stricture and firm abstinence

   Similar: austerity, firmness, rigorousness

6. countable, obsolete, uncountable A stroke; a glance; a touch. But whatever may be said of other matters , certainly the first draughts and strictures of Natural Religion and Morality are naturally in the Mind
7. countable, uncountable The degree of contact, in consonants.