TIGHT, adj. A term employed in certain circumstances to denote the internal capacity of particular bodies, and nearly synonymous with strait.
This term is confined entirely to denote the smallness of the internal dimensions of such objects as are formed to cover, or to receive or contain, other solid bodies, and can be employed in no other case. And although it agrees with strait, in always denoting confinement, and by being applicable to the same species of objects, yet it differs in the following respects: 1. If there be any difference of the diameter of the objects to which the term strait can be applied, it has always reference to the smaller; yet tight may be applied to any sort of confinement, whether it regards the length or breadth. 2. Straight can be applied to all bodies of capacity when of small diameter, without any sort of reference to the nature of the substance which it may be capable of containing. For we can say a strait bag, a strait sleeve, a strait mortise, a strait gate, and so on, whereas tight can only be applied to any body when it is considered as having reference to another body which is intended to be contained in it, and is pinched from want of room. Thus we say the sleeve of a coat is too tight for the arm, the mortise is too tight for the tenon, and so forth; but we cannot say the bag or the gate is too tight, because they are fitted to receive any sort of objects. And hence it happens that in many cases the dimensions of the same body may be expressed by tight or strait, when considered in different circumstances. Thus we may say, this sleeve is too strait, when we look at a coat lying on the table and consider its proportions; but it is not till we have tried it upon the arm which it is intended to cover, that we call it tight. And we may say, a gate is too strait or too tight; but in the first case we consider it as being too confined for admitting objects to pass through it; and in the next, as being too confined with respect to the "leaves" which are to shut the aperture not allowing them space to move with freedom.
These examples may serve to give some idea of the plan of an English dictionary composed upon philosophical principles. But, besides the circumstances above enumerated, there are many others which would require particular attention in the execution of a work of this kind. In the English language a great variety of terms occur which denote matter under certain general forms or circumstances, without regarding the minute diversities that may take place; as the word cloth, which denotes matter as manufactured into a particular form, including under it all the variety of stuffs manufactured in that particular way, of whatever materials, colour, texture, or fineness they may be. The same may be said of wood, iron, yarn, and a great variety of terms of the same nature, some of which cannot assume any plural; whilst others admit of it in all cases, and others, again, admit or refuse it according to the different circumstances in which they are considered.
In a dictionary, therefore, all this variety of cases ought
to be clearly and distinctly pointed out under each particular article. This is the more necessary, as some of these words have others formed from them which might be readily mistaken for their plurals, although they have a very different signification; as clothes, which does not denote any number of pieces of different kinds of cloth, but wearing apparel. The following example will illustrate this head.