Thanks, Mike. How could I have neglected to look at Partridge!, which I have literally always within reach of my working chair. Tho he does, on checking, show it as obsolete in this meaning, except in certain phrases like 'tight corner', tight squeeze', all US usages [tho his original quote was English, from Foote] after about the 1850s. So still a bit of a mystery where Huddy L will have got it from, perhaps?

~M~