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The term “strac” was certainly in use when I was at military college in the late ’60s and on active duty in the US Army in the mid-1970s. Stick to something, keep rigidly to something She kept her eyes fixed/nailed to the stage Ze hield haar blik strak op het podium gericht Ook he gazed at me intently, he looked hard at me

Keep a tight hand on someone, keep someone on a tight rein Here is the Van Dale translation dictionary’s definition: My thought when I read your first line was the Dutch Strak. UD’s sole entry for stract has negative connotations: “overly concerned with standards and minute detail”, but these may not extend beyond one person’s impressions.

There are even more alternatives listed at the Acronym Finder, some presumably backronyms, including “Standing Tall Right Around the Clock” and “Strategic, Tactical and Ready for Action in Combat”.īut the narrower, appearance-related meaning – phonetically suggestive of strict, sharp, straight, smart and strapping – is an interesting development. Were those designated to be on high alert to move anywhere in 72 hours or less as slang, means tight, together, by the book when said with sarcasm by a combat unit about a REMF (rear echelon mother fuckers) unit it refers to stupid soldiers without combat experience. For STRACT, Wikipedia offers “Strategically Ready And Combat Tough”, and says STRAC units Urban Dictionary has two entries for “Skilled, Tough, Ready Around the Clock”, and one for “Strong, Tough, Ready Around the Clock”. There’s no entry in the American Heritage Dictionary or Shorter OED, while offerings in the usual online spots are meagre. A new, unofficial backronym was formed for it, “Skilled, Tough, Ready, Around the Clock.” It was very common in the US Army of the 1980s. It began to be used as an adjective, to be “STRAC” was to be prepared After the demise of the Corps, the adjectival use hung on. “STRAC.” Originally an 1950s acronym for Strategic Army Corps, a group of four elite divisions maintained at a high readiness for overseas deployment. “a well organized, well turned-out soldier, (pressed uniform, polished brass and shined boots).” A proud, competent trooper who can be depended on for good performance in any circumstance.Ĭhambers has a helpful note on the term’s history, quoting Dave Wilton on the American Dialect Society email list: Wiktionary’s glossary of military slang suggests an overlap, saying STRAC is US Army slang for: Strac gave rise to stract – the headword in Green’s entry – a US prison usage from the 1990s meaning “neat and clean in appearance and dress”. I might have guessed this had the term been used in upper case. First port of call was Jonathon Green’s Chambers Slang Dictionary, which says it’s a US military acronym for Strategic Army Corps. What followed the mention of strac implied its probable meaning, but to satisfy my curiosity I had to look it up. Pike was a tall man, as tall as Krantz, but where Krantz was thin and bony, Pike was filled out and hard, his shirt across his back and shoulders and upper arms pulled taut. His uniform spotless, the creases in his pants and shirt sharp, the black leather gear and shoes shined to a mirror finish. Requiem, I came across an unfamiliar word (italics in the original):įirst thing McConnell noticed was that this young officer was strac. While reading Robert Crais’s detective novel L.A.