strain

[L. This word retains its original signification, to stretch.]

strain

To stretch; to draw with force; to extend with great effort; as, to strain a rope; to strain the shrouds of a ship; to strain the chords of an instrument.

strain

To cause to draw with force, or with excess of exertion; to injure by pressing with too much effort. He strained this horses or his oxen by overloading them.

strain

To stretch violently or by violent exertion; as, to strain the arm or the muscles.

strain

To put to the utmost strength. Men in desperate cases will strain themselves for relief.

strain

To press or cause to pass through some porous substance; to purify or separate from extraneous matter by filtration; to filter; as, to strain milk. Water may be stained through sand.

strain

To sprain; to injure by drawing or stretching. Prudes decayd about may tack, strain their necks with looking back.

strain

To make tighter; to cause to bind closer. To strain his fetters with a stricter care.

strain

To force; to constrain; to make uneasy or unnatural. His mirth is forced and strained.

strain

verb intransitive

To make violent efforts. To build his fortune I will strain a little. Straining with too weak a wing.

strain

To be filtered. Water straining through sand becomes pure.

strain

noun

A violent effort; a stretching or exertion of the limbs or muscles, or of any thing else.

strain

An injury by excessive exertion, drawing or stretching.

strain

Style; continued manner of speaking or writing; as the genius and strain of the book of Proverbs. So we say, poetic strains, lofty strains.

strain

Song; note; sound; or a particular part of a tune. Their heavenly harps a lower strain began.

strain

Turn; tendency; inborn disposition. Because heretics have a strain of madness, he applied her with some corporal chastisements.

strain

Manner of speech or action. Such take too high a strain at first.

strain

Race; generation; descent. He is of a noble strain.

strain

Hereditary disposition. Intemperance and lust breed diseases, which propagated, spoil the strain of a nation.

strain

Rank; character.