'Strain' definitions:
Definition of 'strain'
From: WordNet
noun
(physics) deformation of a physical body under the action of applied forces
noun
Difficulty that causes worry or emotional tension; "she endured the stresses and strains of life"; "he presided over the economy during the period of the greatest stress and danger"- R.J.Samuelson [syn: stress, strain]
noun
A succession of notes forming a distinctive sequence; "she was humming an air from Beethoven" [syn: tune, melody, air, strain, melodic line, line, melodic phrase]
noun
(psychology) nervousness resulting from mental stress; "his responsibilities were a constant strain"; "the mental strain of staying alert hour after hour was too much for him" [syn: strain, mental strain, nervous strain]
noun
A special variety of domesticated animals within a species; "he experimented on a particular breed of white rats"; "he created a new strain of sheep" [syn: breed, strain, stock]
noun
(biology) a group of organisms within a species that differ in trivial ways from similar groups; "a new strain of microorganisms" [syn: form, variant, strain, var.]
noun
Injury to a muscle (often caused by overuse); results in swelling and pain
noun
The general meaning or substance of an utterance; "although I disagreed with him I could follow the tenor of his argument" [syn: tenor, strain]
noun
noun
An intense or violent exertion [syn: strain, straining]
noun
The act of singing; "with a shout and a song they marched up to the gates" [syn: song, strain]
verb
verb
verb
Use to the utmost; exert vigorously or to full capacity; "He really extended himself when he climbed Kilimanjaro"; "Don't strain your mind too much" [syn: strain, extend]
verb
Separate by passing through a sieve or other straining device to separate out coarser elements; "sift the flour" [syn: sift, sieve, strain]
verb
Cause to be tense and uneasy or nervous or anxious; "he got a phone call from his lawyer that tensed him up" [syn: tense, strain, tense up] [ant: loosen up, make relaxed, relax, unlax, unstrain, unwind]
verb
Become stretched or tense or taut; "the bodybuilder's neck muscles tensed;" "the rope strained when the weight was attached" [syn: strain, tense]
verb
Remove by passing through a filter; "filter out the impurities" [syn: filter, filtrate, strain, separate out, filter out]
verb
Rub through a strainer or process in an electric blender; "puree the vegetables for the baby" [syn: puree, strain]
verb
Definition of 'Strain'
From: GCIDE
- Strain \Strain\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Strained; p. pr. & vb. n. Straining.] [OF. estraindre, estreindre, F. ['e]treindre, L. stringere to draw or bind tight; probably akin to Gr. ? a halter, ? that which is squeezwd out, a drop, or perhaps to E. strike. Cf. Strangle, Strike, Constrain, District, Strait, a. Stress, Strict, Stringent.]
- 1. 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 strain his fetters with a stricter care." --Dryden. [1913 Webster]
- 2. (Mech.) To act upon, in any way, so as to cause change of form or volume, as forces on a beam to bend it. [1913 Webster]
- 3. To exert to the utmost; to ply vigorously. [1913 Webster]
- He sweats, Strains his young nerves. --Shak. [1913 Webster]
- They strain their warbling throats To welcome in the spring. --Dryden. [1913 Webster]
- 4. 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. [1913 Webster]
- There can be no other meaning in this expression, however some may pretend to strain it. --Swift. [1913 Webster]
- 5. To injure by drawing, stretching, or the exertion of force; as, the gale strained the timbers of the ship. [1913 Webster]
- 6. 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. [1913 Webster]
- Prudes decayed about may track, Strain their necks with looking back. --Swift. [1913 Webster]
- 7. To squeeze; to press closely. [1913 Webster]
- Evander with a close embrace Strained his departing friend. --Dryden. [1913 Webster]
- 8. To make uneasy or unnatural; to produce with apparent effort; to force; to constrain. [1913 Webster]
- He talks and plays with Fatima, but his mirth Is forced and strained. --Denham. [1913 Webster]
- The quality of mercy is not strained. --Shak. [1913 Webster]
- 9. To urge with importunity; to press; as, to strain a petition or invitation. [1913 Webster]
- Note, if your lady strain his entertainment. --Shak. [1913 Webster]
- 10. 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. [1913 Webster]
- To strain a point, to make a special effort; especially, to do a degree of violence to some principle or to one's own feelings.
- To strain courtesy, to go beyond what courtesy requires; to insist somewhat too much upon the precedence of others; -- often used ironically. --Shak. [1913 Webster]
Definition of 'Strain'
From: GCIDE
- Strain \Strain\, n. [See Strene.]
- 1. Race; stock; generation; descent; family. [1913 Webster]
- He is of a noble strain. --Shak. [1913 Webster]
- With animals and plants a cross between different varieties, or between individuals of the same variety but of another strain, gives vigor and fertility to the offspring. --Darwin. [1913 Webster]
- 2. Hereditary character, quality, or disposition. [1913 Webster]
- Intemperance and lust breed diseases, which, propogated, spoil the strain of nation. --Tillotson. [1913 Webster]
- 3. Rank; a sort. "The common strain." --Dryden. [1913 Webster]
- 4. (Hort.) A cultural subvariety that is only slightly differentiated. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
Definition of 'Strain'
From: GCIDE
- Strain \Strain\ (str[=a]n), v. i.
- 1. To make violent efforts. "Straining with too weak a wing." --Pope. [1913 Webster]
- To build his fortune I will strain a little. --Shak. [1913 Webster]
- 2. To percolate; to be filtered; as, water straining through a sandy soil. [1913 Webster]
Definition of 'Strain'
From: GCIDE
- Strain \Strain\, n.
- 1. The act of straining, or the state of being strained. Specifically: [1913 Webster] (a) 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. [1913 Webster]
- Whether any poet of our country since Shakespeare has exerted a greater variety of powers with less strain and less ostentation. --Landor. [1913 Webster]
- Credit is gained by custom, and seldom recovers a strain. --Sir W. Temple. [1913 Webster] (b) (Mech. Physics) A change of form or dimensions of a solid or liquid mass, produced by a stress. --Rankine. [1913 Webster]
- 2. (Mus.) 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. [1913 Webster]
- Their heavenly harps a lower strain began. --Dryden. [1913 Webster]
- 3. 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. "A strain of gallantry." --Sir W. Scott. [1913 Webster]
- Such take too high a strain at first. --Bacon. [1913 Webster]
- The genius and strain of the book of Proverbs. --Tillotson. [1913 Webster]
- It [Pilgrim's Progress] seems a novelty, and yet contains Nothing but sound and honest gospel strains. --Bunyan. [1913 Webster]
- 4. Turn; tendency; inborn disposition. Cf. 1st Strain. [1913 Webster]
- Because heretics have a strain of madness, he applied her with some corporal chastisements. --Hayward. [1913 Webster]
Synonyms of 'strain'
From: Moby Thesaurus
- abrade,
- affectation,
- affiliation,
- agitation,
- aim,
- air,
- all-overs,
- anacrusis,
- ancestry,
- angst,
- animal kingdom,
- animus,
- antistrophe,
- anxiety,
- anxiety hysteria,
- anxiety neurosis,
- anxious bench,
- anxious concern,
- anxious seat,
- anxiousness,
- apparentation,
- apprehension,
- apprehensiveness,
- aptitude,
- aria,
- back down,
- balance,
- balk,
- bark,
- bass passage,
- be determined,
- belie,
- bent,
- bias,
- bid for,
- birth,
- bleed,
- blemish,
- blench,
- bloat,
- bloating,
- blood,
- bloodline,
- bloody,
- boggle,
- bolt,
- book,
- bourdon,
- bracket,
- brain fag,
- branch,
- brand,
- break,
- breaking point,
- breed,
- bridge,
- brood,
- burden,
- burn,
- cadence,
- camouflage,
- cankerworm of care,
- canto,
- cantus,
- care,
- cast,
- caste,
- category,
- chafe,
- character,
- check,
- chill,
- chilliness,
- chip,
- chorus,
- clan,
- clarify,
- class,
- claw,
- clear,
- coda,
- coldness,
- color,
- command of language,
- common ancestry,
- community,
- complexion,
- concern,
- concernment,
- consanguinity,
- constitution,
- contend for,
- continue,
- coolness,
- couplet,
- crack,
- crane,
- craze,
- culture,
- cut,
- damage,
- debate,
- debilitation,
- debility,
- decrassify,
- deliberate,
- demand,
- deme,
- demur,
- denomination,
- depurate,
- derivation,
- descant,
- descendants,
- descent,
- description,
- designation,
- determination,
- development,
- diathesis,
- direct line,
- disaffinity,
- discharge,
- disguise,
- disposition,
- disquiet,
- disquietude,
- distaff side,
- distension,
- distich,
- distill,
- distort,
- distress,
- disturbance,
- division,
- draft,
- drag,
- drag out,
- drain,
- draw,
- draw off,
- draw out,
- dread,
- dress up,
- drift,
- drive,
- eccentricity,
- edulcorate,
- effort,
- effuse,
- elongate,
- elongation,
- elute,
- embellish,
- embroider,
- emit,
- endeavor,
- enervation,
- enfeeblement,
- enmity,
- envoi,
- epode,
- essentialize,
- estate,
- ethnic group,
- evidence,
- exaggeration,
- exceed,
- excrete,
- exertion,
- exfiltrate,
- exposition,
- expression of ideas,
- extend,
- extension,
- extract,
- extraction,
- extravasate,
- extreme tension,
- exudate,
- exude,
- eyestrain,
- faintness,
- falsify,
- falter,
- family,
- fashion,
- fatigue,
- fear,
- feather,
- feeling for words,
- female line,
- fight shy of,
- figure,
- filiation,
- filter,
- filtrate,
- flinch,
- folderol,
- folk,
- force,
- foreboding,
- forebodingness,
- form,
- form of speech,
- fracture,
- fray,
- frazzle,
- fret,
- frost,
- fudge,
- gag,
- gall,
- garble,
- gash,
- genre,
- gens,
- genus,
- gild,
- give off,
- gloss,
- gloss over,
- goneness,
- grace of expression,
- grade,
- grain,
- grandiloquence,
- group,
- grouping,
- hang back,
- hang off,
- harass,
- harm,
- harmonic close,
- haul,
- have qualms,
- head,
- heading,
- heart strain,
- heave,
- hem and haw,
- heptastich,
- heritage,
- hesitate,
- hexastich,
- hint,
- hold off,
- house,
- hover,
- hum and haw,
- humor,
- hurt,
- iciness,
- idiosyncrasy,
- ilk,
- impair,
- impression,
- incise,
- inclination,
- incompatibility,
- incompatibleness,
- indication,
- individualism,
- inflate,
- inflation,
- inhospitality,
- inimicality,
- injure,
- injury,
- inquietude,
- interlude,
- intermezzo,
- introductory phrase,
- irk,
- jadedness,
- jib,
- kidney,
- kin,
- kind,
- label,
- labor,
- lacerate,
- languor,
- lassitude,
- lay,
- leach,
- leaning,
- lengthen,
- lengthen out,
- lengthening,
- let out,
- level,
- line,
- line of descent,
- lineage,
- literary style,
- lixiviate,
- lot,
- lug,
- maim,
- make,
- make an effort,
- make bones about,
- make mincemeat of,
- makeup,
- malaise,
- male line,
- manner,
- manner of speaking,
- mannerism,
- mark,
- mask,
- matriclan,
- maul,
- measure,
- melodia,
- melodic line,
- melody,
- mental fatigue,
- mental set,
- mental strain,
- mettle,
- mind,
- mind-set,
- miscite,
- miscolor,
- misconstrue,
- misdirect,
- misgiving,
- misinterpret,
- misquote,
- misrender,
- misreport,
- misrepresent,
- misstate,
- misuse,
- mode,
- mode of expression,
- moil,
- mold,
- monostich,
- mood,
- movement,
- music,
- musical phrase,
- musical sentence,
- mutilate,
- nation,
- nationality,
- nature,
- nervous strain,
- nervous tension,
- nervousness,
- note,
- number,
- obligation,
- octastich,
- octave,
- octet,
- ooze,
- order,
- ornament,
- ottava rima,
- overanxiety,
- overburden,
- overcarrying,
- overdevelop,
- overdistend,
- overdistension,
- overdoing,
- overdraw,
- overdrawing,
- overemphasis,
- overexercise,
- overexert,
- overexertion,
- overexpand,
- overexpansion,
- overexpenditure,
- overextend,
- overextension,
- overimportance,
- overreaching,
- overreaction,
- overstate,
- overstrain,
- overstraining,
- overstress,
- overstretch,
- overstretching,
- overtax,
- overtaxing,
- overtiredness,
- overuse,
- overwork,
- pain,
- parentage,
- part,
- passage,
- patriclan,
- pause,
- peculiarity,
- pedigree,
- pentastich,
- people,
- percolate,
- period,
- personal conflict,
- personal style,
- persuasion,
- perturbation,
- pervert,
- phrase,
- phratry,
- phylum,
- pierce,
- pigeonhole,
- pins and needles,
- plant kingdom,
- ponder,
- position,
- predicament,
- predilection,
- predisposition,
- preference,
- press,
- pressure,
- proclivity,
- produce,
- production,
- prolong,
- prolongate,
- prolongation,
- propensity,
- protract,
- protraction,
- pucker,
- pull,
- pull back,
- pull for,
- puncture,
- purify,
- push,
- quail,
- quality,
- quatrain,
- race,
- rack,
- rank,
- rating,
- recoil,
- rectify,
- reek,
- refine,
- refrain,
- rend,
- resolution,
- resolve,
- response,
- retreat,
- rhetoric,
- rhyme royal,
- rip,
- ritornello,
- roots,
- rubric,
- run,
- rupture,
- savage,
- scald,
- scorch,
- scotch,
- scrape,
- scratch,
- screen,
- scruple,
- scuff,
- section,
- seed,
- seek,
- seep,
- sense of language,
- separate,
- sept,
- septet,
- sestet,
- set,
- sew,
- sextet,
- shape,
- shilly-shally,
- shrink,
- shy,
- shy at,
- side,
- sieve,
- sift,
- sign,
- skin,
- slant,
- slash,
- sleepiness,
- slit,
- snapping point,
- society,
- solicitude,
- solo,
- solo part,
- song,
- soprano part,
- sort,
- sound,
- soupcon,
- spear side,
- species,
- speech community,
- Spenserian stanza,
- spin out,
- spindle side,
- spirit,
- spiritualize,
- sprain,
- stab,
- stamp,
- stance fatigue,
- stanza,
- statement,
- station,
- status,
- stave,
- stem,
- stew,
- stick,
- stick at,
- stickle,
- stirps,
- stock,
- stop to consider,
- straddle the fence,
- strain at,
- strain every nerve,
- strain for,
- straining,
- strains,
- stratum,
- streak,
- stress,
- stress and strain,
- stressfulness,
- stretch,
- stretch out,
- stretching,
- string out,
- stringing out,
- stripe,
- strive,
- strive for,
- striving,
- strophe,
- struggle,
- struggle for,
- study,
- stumble,
- style,
- stylistic analysis,
- stylistics,
- subdivision,
- subgroup,
- sublimate,
- sublime,
- suborder,
- succession,
- suggestion,
- supererogation,
- surpass,
- suspense,
- suspicion,
- sweat,
- sweat blood,
- swell,
- swelling,
- sword side,
- syllable,
- tailpiece,
- tauten,
- tautness,
- tax,
- taxing,
- tear,
- temper,
- temperament,
- tendency,
- tenor,
- tense,
- tenseness,
- tension,
- tercet,
- terza rima,
- tetrastich,
- the grand style,
- the like of,
- the likes of,
- the plain style,
- the sublime,
- theme,
- think twice about,
- thread,
- tighten,
- tiredness,
- titivate,
- title,
- toil,
- tone,
- torture,
- totem,
- trace,
- trait,
- transpire,
- transude,
- traumatize,
- treble,
- tribe,
- trick,
- trick out,
- triplet,
- tristich,
- trouble,
- try,
- try for,
- try hard,
- tug,
- tune,
- turn,
- turn of mind,
- tutti,
- tutti passage,
- twist,
- type,
- unamiability,
- uncordiality,
- understate,
- uneasiness,
- unfriendliness,
- ungeniality,
- unquietness,
- unsociability,
- upset,
- variation,
- variety,
- varnish,
- vein,
- verse,
- vestige,
- vexation,
- warp,
- waver,
- way,
- weakness,
- wearifulness,
- weariness,
- weep,
- whitewash,
- wince,
- winnow,
- withdraw,
- work,
- worry,
- wound,
- wrench,
- yield,
- zeal