Definition of Strain

Strain

A cultural subvariety that is only slightly differentiated.

Race; stock; generation; descent; family.

Hereditary character, quality, or disposition.

Rank; a sort.

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

To act upon, in any way, so as to cause change of form or volume, as forces on a beam to bend it.

To exert to the utmost; to ply vigorously.

To stretch beyond its proper limit; to do violence to, in the matter of intent or meaning; as, to strain the law in order to convict an accused person.

To injure by drawing, stretching, or the exertion of force; as, the gale strained the timbers of the ship.

To injure in the muscles or joints by causing to make too strong an effort; to harm by overexertion; to sprain; as, to strain a horse by overloading; to strain the wrist; to strain a muscle.

To squeeze; to press closely.

To make uneasy or unnatural; to produce with apparent effort; to force; to constrain.

To urge with importunity; to press; as, to strain a petition or invitation.

To press, or cause to pass, through a strainer, as through a screen, a cloth, or some porous substance; to purify, or separate from extraneous or solid matter, by filtration; to filter; as, to strain milk through cloth.

To make violent efforts.

To percolate; to be filtered; as, water straining through a sandy soil.

The act of straining, or the state of being strained.

A violent effort; an excessive and hurtful exertion or tension, as of the muscles; as, he lifted the weight with a strain; the strain upon a ship's rigging in a gale; also, the hurt or injury resulting; a sprain.

A change of form or dimensions of a solid or liquid mass, produced by a stress.

A portion of music divided off by a double bar; a complete musical period or sentence; a movement, or any rounded subdivision of a movement.

Any sustained note or movement; a song; a distinct portion of an ode or other poem; also, the pervading note, or burden, of a song, poem, oration, book, etc.; theme; motive; manner; style; also, a course of action or conduct; as, he spoke in a noble strain; there was a strain of woe in his story; a strain of trickery appears in his career.

Turn; tendency; inborn disposition. Cf. 1st Strain.

Related Definitions:

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Strain Quotations

With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.
Abraham Lincoln

A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.
George Eliot

Different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.
George Eliot

I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand. Henceforth will I apply ALL my efforts to become the highest mountain of all and I will strain my potential until it cries for mercy.
Og Mandino

The Founding Fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents. So they provided jails called schools, equipped with tortures called an education.
John Updike

There has been growing quite a strain of irritating feeling between our government and the Russians and it seems to me that it is a time for me to use all the restraint I can on these other people who have been apparently getting a little more irritated.
Henry L. Stimson

But what if I fail of my purpose here? It is but to keep the nerves at strain, to dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall, and baffled, get up and begin again.
Robert Browning

It is always a strain when people are being killed. I don't think anybody has held this job who hasn't felt personally responsible for those being killed.
Lyndon B. Johnson

The anchors now made are contrived so as to sink into the ground as soon as they reach it, and to hold a great strain before they can be loosened or dislodged from their station.
William Falconer

Christianity emerged from the religion of Israel. Or rather, it has as its background a persistent strain in that religion. To that strain Christians have looked back, and rightly, as the preparation in history for their faith.
Kenneth Scott Latourette