straight-laced
adjective
Forms straighter-laced straightest-laced straightlaced strait-laced straitlaced
Synonyms
tight-laced stuffy priggish prim prissy prudish puritanical square-toed straitlaced strait-laced straightlaced victorian
Etymology
Widely agreed to have originated (centuries ago) in homophonic confusion (in speech) of strait-laced (“tight-laced”), but long since so widely accepted and used, because having such strongly apparent analogy with straight in its senses relating to orthodoxy and conformity (compare squareness), that it can no longer accurately be called erroneous; instead it is an established alternative form with its own reanalyzed surface analysis. Compare straitjacket with *straightjacket; the latter is still usually regarded as an error, but the relationship is analogous.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “straight-laced”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details