Definition of "stricture"

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.

1855, Anthony Trollope, chapter 20, in The Warden

For many young people throughout Britain in the 1970s, Northern Soul became a truly alternative lifestyle with the rites and values of the scene replacing many of the traditional strictures of society.

2013, Elaine Constantine, Gareth Sweeney, Northern Soul: An Illustrated History, Random House, page 12

Even venerable print publications seem to accept that old strictures no longer apply when they move online.

2014, Astra Taylor, chapter 6, in The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, Henry Holt and Company

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.

1889, William Sharp, chapter 2, in Life of Robert Browning‎

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.

1914, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter XVIII, in The Mucker‎, All-Story Cavalier Weekly

a man of stricture and firm abstinence

c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene iii]

But whatever may be said of other matters , certainly the first draughts and strictures of Natural Religion and Morality are naturally in the Mind

a. 1677, Matthew Hale, The Primitive Origination of Mankind, Considered and Examined According to the Light of Nature, London: […] William Godbid, for William Shrowsbery, […], published 1677