How to spell straight

hear it/streɪt/adverbSilent and tricky

What it means: In a direct line without turning.

In a sentence: The road goes straight to the park.

The part people get wrong

Often misspelled as strait or straite.

Same family: straightforward, straightness, honest, direct, frank. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Straight” comes from Old English *streht* or *straeht*, the past participle of *streccan* meaning “to stretch,” so its original sense was something stretched out or direct; from that idea of directness, it later developed the figurative sense of being honest and fair.

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