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Strain   /streɪn/   Listen
Strain

verb
(past & past part. strained; pres. part. straining)
1.
To exert much effort or energy.  Synonyms: reach, strive.
2.
Test the limits of.  Synonyms: stress, try.
3.
Use to the utmost; exert vigorously or to full capacity.  Synonym: extend.  "Don't strain your mind too much"
4.
Separate by passing through a sieve or other straining device to separate out coarser elements.  Synonyms: sieve, sift.
5.
Cause to be tense and uneasy or nervous or anxious.  Synonyms: tense, tense up.
6.
Become stretched or tense or taut.  Synonym: tense.  "The rope strained when the weight was attached"
7.
Remove by passing through a filter.  Synonyms: filter, filter out, filtrate, separate out.
8.
Rub through a strainer or process in an electric blender.  Synonym: puree.
9.
Alter the shape of (something) by stress.  Synonyms: deform, distort.



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"Strain" Quotes from Famous Books



... and such social results as are described by Becke.[2211] Amongst ourselves also the increase of insanity, nervous diseases, crime, and suicide must be ascribed in part to the constant and more intense brain strain, especially in youth. Women also, as they participate more in the competition of life, have to get more education, and they fall under the diseases also. The cases of child suicide are the most startling product of our ways of education. These personal and social diseases are a part of the price ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... with a noble idealism, yet just as undoubtedly streaked with a powerful realism. This should, however, connote no inept mingling of genres; the style seems to be called for by the very nature of the vast theme—that moment at which the native and the immigrant strain begin to merge in the land of the future—the promised land that the protagonists are destined never to enter, even as Moses himself, upon Mount Nebo in the land of Moab, beheld Canaan and died in the throes ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

... Miss Lessing and I were resting by the roadside, one of these women stopped for breath just in front of us. She was pushing a heavy cart and her poor old body was trembling from the strain. Her legs were bare, and her feet were cut by the stones. There was absolute stolidity in her weather-beaten face, and the hands that lighted her pipe were gnarled and black. Miss Lessing has a perfect genius for getting ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... had to be short, and was frequently interrupted, as high waves would come along and almost sweep them into the lake. Both lay flat, clutching at the lumber and at the huge chains which held it, and which had thus far refused to part, although the strain upon ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield

... now the whole 'Purple Slipper' will go into cold storage until you come back," Mr. Vandeford growled at her, and the effort it took not to hold on to her with bodily fingers was a great strain. "I told you the usual situation because I felt that you were clever enough to make the best of it and help the play a lot. No author ever has seen a play produced as he wrote it, and he has to stand seeing everybody ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... it comes from the mountain fells, Where the Spirit of Song and Freedom dwells, Where in youth's warm day I woke that strain I ne'er in this ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... the construction, foremen of the Windsor Hotel. Mack Mullen is tall, grey haired, sharp featured and of Caucasian strain (his mother was a mulatto) with a keen mind and an appearance that belies his 75 years. He laments that he was freed because his master was good to his slaves; he says "we had everything we wanted; never did I think I'd come to this—got to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... the reel shrilled out, and the fish took nearly a hundred feet of line, but the angler held the brake so hard that the strain rapidly exhausted the fish, and when it turned toward the boat, the professor's deft fingers reeled at such a speed that the line wound in almost as rapidly as the rush of the fish. As soon as the salmon saw the boat it tried to ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... and supplies, they traveled northward through the dense forest until they came to a small and well sheltered valley, where they concluded to rest, it being full time, as collapse was coming fast after their great exertions and intense strain. Nevertheless, Silent Tom was able to keep the first watch, while the others threw themselves on the ground and went to ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... more comfortably if I knew that you were not undergoing this tremendous strain," said the unhappy Mr. Higgs, "and besides that, if you did give way, it would be a serious business for me —that's what I want you to look at. I am afraid that if—if unhappily you did fall, I couldn't ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs

... over-intimately linked up with emotional reflex responses; that yielding to such reflex responses gives gratification; that intellectual analysis and suspense of judgment involve an inhibition of reflex responses which is felt as neural distress; that precipitate judgment brings relief from this physiological strain; and that woman looks upon her mind not as an implement for the pursuit of truth, but as an instrument for providing her with creature comforts in the form of agreeable ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright

... rugged. It seemed a miracle that he escaped without broken bones. Presently he came to a steep rock that projected into the water. There was no getting round it, so in he dashed. It took him only up to the knees. This passed, he came to another place of the same sort. Here he put a strain on the fish, and tried to stop it. But it was not to be stopped. It had clearly made up its mind to go right down to the sea. Fred looked at the pool, hesitated one moment, and then leaped in. It ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne

... readers. On the other hand, such was the feverish anxiety manifested in the struggle, that it was scarcely possible to publish the Diurnals and Mercuries which contained the latest news fast enough, and the press was unequal to the strain, although the number of printers in London during this period was three times larger than that allowed by the decree of 1637. Professor Arber, in his Transcript, says that this increase in the number of printers ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer

... might have provided much innocent and healthful recreation for his family; but usually he was so dreamy and stupid in the evening that he was left to doze quietly in his chair. His family ascribed his condition to weariness and reaction from his long strain of anxiety; and opium had already so far produced its legitimate results that he connived at their delusion if he did not confirm it by actual assertion. It is one of the diabolical qualities of this habit that it soon weakens ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... upon the level sand of the beach with a low, sullen roar, prophetic of storms to come. To-night a south wind was heavily blowing over Gulf and prairie, laden with salt odors of weed and grass, now and then crossed by a strain of such perfume as only tropic breezes know,—a breath of heavy, passionate sweetness from orange-groves and rose gardens, mixed with the miasmatic sighs of rank forests, and mile on mile of tangled cane-brake, where jewel-tinted snakes glitter and emit their own sickly-sweet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... are certain powerful minorities of fighting folk whose interests an Asiatic Government is bound to consider. Arms is as much a means of livelihood as civil employ under Government and law. And it would be a heavy strain on British bayonets to hold down Sikhs, Jats, Bilochis, Rohillas, Rajputs, Bhils, Dogras, Pahtans, and Gurkbas to abide by the decisions of a numerical majority opposed to their interests. Leave the 'numerical majority' to itself without the British bayonets-a flock of sheep might ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling

... lean farmers from the Dakotas who had fought with adverse seasons, and the sinewy axe-men from Michigan clearings, bore it with grim patience, but there were here and there a few who failed to stand the strain, and, listening to the outcasts from the East, let passion drive out fortitude and dreamed of anarchy. They had come in with a pitiful handful of dollars to build new homes and farm, but the rich men, and in some cases their own supineness, had been too strong ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss

... Samaria received the word of God by the preaching of Philip, which with its accompanying miracles, diffused an universal joy, "they were baptized, both MEN and WOMEN;" and the apostle Paul, in writing to the Galatians, expresses himself in this triumphant strain: "For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither MALE nor FEMALE, for ye ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... concluded the report in a strain of lyric prophecy, "petroleum will have taken the place of all the primitive and useless illuminating mediums now employed. It will replace, in like manner, all the coarse and troublesome varieties of fuel of our day. In less than twenty years the whole world ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... persons. And as such is the care which is spent by us on the support of our bodies, what manner of men ought we to show ourselves on behalf of our children and of the mother that is to rear them? Ought we not most readily to strain every nerve? For in this way alone does the constitution of man's nature, which is mortal, attain to prosperity, and the prayers of parents all tend to this one end. And hence, whoever cares not for this is sure to be regardless ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various

... whispered.... "I've been under a strain.... I think I should have gone out of my mind—if I had been prevented from expiating the wrong I did.... I wish I could tell you—he's the bravest man in the world, I think—and the most unhappy!... And I ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner

... forested slopes and brawling streams, steadily worsening road, ruder dwellings, more primitive, impoverished folk, rolled a time of difficulties small and great, like the mountain pebbles for number. It took will and wit at strain to dissolve them all, and so make way out of Spain into France—through ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... much more wonderful than some of those modern miracles, which leave us to hesitate between the two incredible alternatives that men of science are fallible, or that mankind in general, like Sir Walter Scott's grandmother, are 'awfu' leears.' Every effort is made to reduce the strain upon our credulity to that moderate degree of intensity which may fairly be required from the reader of a wild fiction. When the first characteristic wish of the proprietor—namely, that he may be indulged in a frantic ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... The only rational course for those who had no other object than the attainment of truth, was to accept 'Darwinism' as a working hypothesis, and see what could be made of it. Either it would prove its capacity to elucidate the fact of organic life, or it would break down under the strain. This was surely the dictate of common sense, and for once common-sense carried the day. The result has been that complete volte-face of the whole scientific world which must seem so surprising to the present ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell

... pocket-handkerchief business better, or smothered his emotion more beautifully. "In the gayest moments, in the giddiest throng of fashion, the thoughts of the past will rise; the departed will be among us still. But this is not the strain wherewith to greet the friend newly arrived on our shores. How it rejoices me to behold you in old England! How you must have ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... take his pen and commit to paper some thought or thoughts that are racing about in his brain, trying to find an outlet, that compels him to produce them as far as he is able, this same urgent impulse forces him to complete his manuscript, and when completed, to strain his utmost to give it actual life in the thoughts and brains of ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross

... This easy triumph which cost little Roman blood and enriched the soldiers with the spoils of war, created in his men a belief in his foresight and prowess which seemed sufficient to stand the severest strain.[1131] A great effort had now to be made in a quarter of Numidia which lay not less than seven hundred miles from the recent scene of operations. As neither the site of Marius's recent winter quarters nor the base which he chose for ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... meant the thing he said. It is my humor to fix my own position in men's minds; to lose the thing I have that I may gain the thing I have not; to overcome, and never prize the victory; to hunt down a quarry, and feel no ardor in the chase; to strain after a goal, and yet care not if I ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... the play." In this Settle was described as "an animal of a most deplored intellect, without reading and understanding;" whilst his play was characterized as "a tale told by an idiot, full of noise and fury signifying nothing." To these remarks and others of like quality, Settle replied in the same strain, so that the quarrel diverted the town and even disturbed the quiet of the universities. Time did ample justice to both men; lowering Settle to play the part of a dragon in a booth at Bartholomew Fair, and ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... fellow. Do something to rouse her heart. It is only suffering from shock and will come to the scratch when it is stirred by pity. The best thing to do is to get seriously ill. Too much grief—mental strain—has brought on a heart attack. Lie down to it and kick up a devil of a fuss. I'll tip the doctor a wink and we'll do it in style. What do you say to that? When she hears you are on the verge of heart failure, all through her, she'll fall on your neck ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... King, "because he whom Fortune has befriended so long, should beware how he strain her favour too far. Eighteen pitched battles fought I in the Saracen land, and in every one was a victor—never, at home or abroad, have I known shame and defeat. Doth the wind always blow from one point?—and is Fate less ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... leaving our losings with a shrug. Perhaps that is why we have been summoned to the board and the cards dealt round: that we may learn some of the virtues of the good gambler; his self-control, his courage under misfortune, his modesty under the strain of success, his firmness, his alertness, his general indifference to fate. Good lessons these, all of them. If by the game we learn some of them our time on the green earth has not been wasted. If we rise from the table having learned only ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... the west retired, And with the glory of his parting ray The hundred domes of Mexico he fired, When I, with vague and solemn awe inspired, Entered the Incarnation's sacred fane. The vaulted roof, the dim aisle far retired, Echoed the deep-toned organ's holy strain, Which through the incensed ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... gunpowder. Such powder, if held in small spaces in a mass of cast steel, could be fired without rending the metal. The gases would be retained in a highly compressed, possibly in a fluid form. If now it happens that any of the strain in the rocks such as lead to the production of faults produce fissures leading from the surface into this zone of heated water, the tendency of the rocks containing the fluid, impelled by its expansion, will be to ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... faithful; they were still faithful, but the stress of exhaustion was beginning to sap their morale; to drive them into irritability so that, under the strain of almost superhuman exertion, they threatened to break. Brent was not of their blood and knew little of how to handle them, and though Parson Acup was indefatigable, his face became more ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... take two parts of alcohol by weight, mix the pulp thoroughly with one-sixth of the alcohol and then add the rest of the alcohol. Stir all, pour into a well stoppered bottle, let stand eight days, in a cool place. Pour off, strain, filter. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... go a little further on the same road and meet a trumpeter of heaven, and I say: "Haven't you got some music for a tired pilgrim?" And wiping his lip and taking a long breath, he puts his mouth to the trumpet and pours forth this strain: "They shall hunger no more, neither shall they thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat, for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them to living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... taught me that Love's rosy fetters A pang from the thorns may impart; That the coinage of vows and of letters Comes not from the mint of the heart. Like the lone bird that flutters her pinion, And warbles in bondage her strain, I have struggled to fly thy domain, But find that the struggle ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... plenty of time to prepare; for the tide was out, and the "Drake," beating down a narrow channel, made but slow headway. The delay was a severe strain upon the nerves of the men, who stood silent and grim at their quarters on the American ship, waiting for the fight to begin. At such a moment, even the most courageous must lose heart, as he thinks upon the terrible ordeal through ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... attractive and associated labor, he would sympathize with Ricardo, perhaps, that labor is the measure of value, but "embrace, as do generous minds, the proposition of labor shared by all." He would go deeper than political economics, strain out the self-factor from both theories, and make the measure of each pretty much the same, so that the natural (the majority) would win, but not to the disadvantage of the minority (the artificial) because this has disappeared—it is of the majority. ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... has a talent for describing the involvements of feelings and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The big bow-wow strain I can do myself, like any one going; but the exquisite touch which renders commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... these things, I may mention, was reversed by the order of publication; the earlier written of the two books having appeared as the later.) Even under the weight of my hero's years I could feel my postulate firm; even under the strain of the difference between those of Madame de Vionnet and those of Chad Newsome, a difference liable to be denounced as shocking, I could still feel it serene. Nothing resisted, nothing betrayed, I seem ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... very evening he had spoken clearly and connectedly. As for the story of the apparition, other men, with intellects as clear as the intellects of their neighbors had fancied themselves pursued by a phantom, and had even written about it in a high strain of philosophical speculation. It was plain that the real hallucination in the case now before me lay in Monkton's conviction of the truth of the old prophecy, and in his idea that the fancied apparition was a ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... choice of subjects quite in the spirit of Le Sage, with a dash of the dandified impertinence that mocked the foibles of the old Romanticists. However, he presently abandoned this style for the more subjective strain of 'Les Voeux Steyiles, Octave, Les Secretes Pensees de Rafael, Namouna, and Rolla', the last two being very eloquent at times, though immature. Rolla (1833) is one of the strongest and most depressing of his works; the sceptic ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset

... sympathy and the grace of Gray and Wordsworth with a greater warmth and a glow that is enkindling. The man who is a master in transition is also and perforce powerful in contrast. In this graceful gift the whole piece is a striking study. Whether the strain be didactic or dramatic, emotional or vivacious, melody is never lost. With many poets frequently the whole melodiousness of poetry disappears in the prose of a too palpably proclaimed philosophy. This poem from a pure heart, and these lines from a loving life, ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland

... that gentleman appeared at the door, "Miss Ware wants you right away at the jail," and as he spoke he was struck with the strain which showed in the man's face. "He must have felt it a good ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson

... an interesting habit of snapping his fingers on both hands together over his head when he declaimed in this way, always circling about the room in a rapid stride. I remember he stopped in front of me and continued in a strain ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap

... safely to the ground beneath, and the engineer now began to lower himself. But he had scarcely accomplished ten feet of the descent, when the fastenings, which we had fancied so secure, gave way, or rather the rock itself proved treacherous and crumbled beneath the strain; and the unhappy man was precipitated to the bottom, falling just at my feet, and bringing down with his fall splinters of the rock, one of which, fortunately but a small one, struck and for the time stunned me. When ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... the first day owing to rain. On the second day Somerset scored 157. Rain fell again and Kent were unable to commence their innings till the afternoon of the third day. Obviously they had to strain every nerve to accomplish two things: (1) to avoid getting out and (2) to avoid scoring more than 157. At all hazards they must neither win nor lose on the first innings. They could not win the match. There was no time. And either a win or a loss on the first innings would lower ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various

... physical growth. Associated with this great physical growth is the fact that some organs grow much faster than others, so that the proportions of an adult come to be very different from those of a child. In the meanwhile, however, there has been a great strain on the system, because, apart from the demands of the general body growth, some of the organs have not been able to keep up with the special demands made upon them. For example, the growth in body ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg

... sordid nature, whose wealth, ignobly won, was selfishly hoarded, and to whose names, as to that of the late Jay Gould, there is attached in the mind of the people a distinct note of infamy. But this was not in general the character of the American millionaire. There were those of nobler strain who felt a responsibility commensurate with the great power conferred by great riches, and held their wealth as in trust for mankind. Through the fidelity of men of this sort it has come to pass that the era of great fortunes in America has become conspicuous ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... church notices. Which is cause and which effect I will not assume to say; but Austin is headquarters for camp-meetings—and every neurologists endorsed the ICONOCLAST'S theory that emotional religion is a terrible strain on ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... then stood talking to her at the corner of the porch, feeling very sure that Humphreys would listen from above. He heard his stealthy tread, after a while, disturb a loose board on the upper porch. Then he began to talk to Cynthy Ann in this strain: ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston

... lead pipe, and shout when the water began to pour into the trough. His object was to find how far the sluice required to be shut down in order to send up just as much water as the pipe could deliver. More than that would cause a pressure which might strain, and perhaps ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald

... they would use; Though I something miss of might, To express his meaning quite. For I neither fear nor care What in this their censures are; If the art here used be Their dislike, it liketh me. While I linger on each strain, And read, and read it o'er again, I am loth to part from thence, Until I trace the poet's sense, And have the Printer's errors found, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various

... and indignant but not nearly so entirely indignant as a noble heroine should have been. She was certainly not nearly so queenly as Mrs. Sawbridge would have shown herself under such circumstances. It may have been due to some plebeian strain in her father's blood that over and above her proper indignation she was extremely interested. She wanted to know what manner of man it was whose nose was just appearing above the window edge of the taxi-cab behind. In her inexperienced inattention she had never yet thought it was possible ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... not heedless of my wish, Began; and thus, as one who breaks not off Discourse, continued in her saintly strain. "Supreme of gifts, which God creating gave Of his free bounty, sign most evident Of goodness, and in his account most priz'd, Was liberty of will, the boon wherewith All intellectual creatures, and them sole He hath endow'd. Hence now thou mayst infer ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... were swept against the first icy precipice the danger had come unexpectedly, out of a concealing cloud, and anticipation was swallowed up in the event. But now we had to bear the fearful strain of expectation, with the paralyzing knowledge that nothing that we could do could aid us in the least. I thought that even ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss

... the battle won, himself wounded, exhausted through months of intense nervous strain, his frail body maimed and covered with scars, again sailed into the Bay ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... pale, their bitterness and their reticence, told of years of strain, laboriously money-earning, in lands where relaxations are few and forced, where climatic conditions are adverse, where fevers lurk, and where the white minority are posted like soldiers in a lonely fort, ever suspicious, ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... are tired or unwell, for then they will be dull, while, if we abuse or strain them, they often are red. This not only makes them less attractive, but it shows we must attend to them. Would it not be dreadful if they became so tired or worn out that we could not see with them? The care of the eyes is very important. When you are reading ...
— Confidences - Talks With a Young Girl Concerning Herself • Edith B. Lowry

... find objectionable allusions in the book. If so, I must refer that one to the shade of Multatuli. From his own admission his shoulders were evidently broad; and, no doubt, they will be able to bear the additional strain. ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli

... them away for repairs, Gussie dear," Dexie replied, in her sweetest tone, "and I fear they will not be returned to me until after Mr. Plaisted has taken his departure. Very sorry, but they have experienced such a strain these few days past that they were about ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... paused. For the second time that night I was going beyond myself—venturing out of what I looked on as my natural habits— speaking in an unpremeditated, impulsive strain, which startled me strangely when I halted to reflect. On rising that morning, had I anticipated that before night I should have acted the part of a gay lover in a vaudeville; and an hour after, frankly discussed with Dr. John the question of his hapless suit, and rallied ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... be glad," he once confessed to me, "to get a little time to myself. She means kindly, but it is a strain. And then the others don't like it. It makes them nervous. I can see ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome

... indeed completely fagged out. The reaction following the nervous strain and the excitement of the past few days was beginning to set in, and Harry felt that if he could once more climb into his bunk on the Mariella he could sleep for twenty-four hours. Still, they pulled themselves together and struck out ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich

... short, and they will soon be over. Thus do these consolations destroy each other; for if life is a place of comfort, its shortness must be misery, and if it be long, our griefs are protracted. Thus philosophy is weak; but religion comforts in an higher strain. Man is here, it tells us, fitting up his mind, and preparing it for another abode. When the good man leaves the body and is all a glorious mind, he will find he has been making himself a heaven of happiness here, while the ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith

... stormy. She had been tried beyond her strength, and, not sharing her husband's enormous confidence in his artistic powers, she had not the stimulus of his faith in his ultimate success to sustain her. Moreover a heart trouble with which she was afflicted resulted, through the strain to which their uncertain material condition subjected her, in a growing irritability which was accentuated by jealousy of women who entered the growing circle of Wagner's admirers as his ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb

... sole, or at any rate whose chief, food was fish. Fish abound in these districts, and are readily taken either with the hook or in nets. The mode of preparing this food was to dry it in the sun, to pound it fine, strain it through a sieve, and then make it up into cakes, or into a kind ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson

... should a well-ordered poem be (In which he only hits the white Who joins true profit with the best delight), The more heroic strain let others take, Mine the Pindaric way I'll make, The matter shall be grave, the numbers loose and free. It shall not keep one settled pace of time, In the same tune it shall not always chime, Nor shall each day just to his neighbour rhyme. A thousand liberties it shall ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... to Herr Gutbrod of Bradford for the fact that this dog has already become fairly well distributed among us. If I have been rightly informed regarding the Airedale's history it is a crossbreed between the otter-hound and the bull-terrier, this strain having been originally obtained by the factory hands of Airedale in the North of England, who thus sought to obtain a hardy dog—one not afraid of water, and that would prove a useful assistant when out poaching either water-fowl, hares or rabbits, occasions ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann

... enough to hold her. The minister rose to lead in prayer. Hannah bowed her head devoutly, trusting in the power of example. She was conscious of the heavy breathing of Margaret beside her, due to the unwonted strain of pressing her chin close to her chest. The minister's voice droned on and on, but Hannah was sending up a fervent petition of her own, and for a brief space heard nothing. Then—Bang! "I want to sit by Her." There was a thud of falling ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett

... my husband had gone to a reception in Grosvenor Square, I had a sudden attack of heart-strain and had to be put to bed, whereupon Price, who had realised that I was really ill, told Hobson, my husband's valet, to go after his master ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... into his office that morning tired and unrefreshed by the few hours' sleep he had gotten the night before, edgy from the strain, of trying to adjust his mind to the world of Blanley College in mid-April of 1973. Pottgeiter hadn't arrived yet, but Marjorie Fenner was waiting for him; a newspaper in her ...
— The Edge of the Knife • Henry Beam Piper

... a little warm water for four-and-twenty hours; expose it to heat over the fire till the greater part of the water is dissipated, and supply its place by proof spirits of wine, which will combine with the isinglass. Strain the whole through a piece of open linen, taking care that the consistence of the mixture shall be such that, when cool, it ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... narrative in store. That you should have lit on me at the critical instant is one of those miracles which combine to produce overwhelming testimony—ay, Richie! without a doubt there is a hand directing our destiny.' His speaking in such a strain, out of pure kindness to Temple, huskily, with his painful attempt to talk like himself, revived his image as the father of my heart and dreams, and stirred my torpid affection, though it was still torpid enough, as may be imagined, when I state that I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... it must take its destiny into its own hands. Austria was defeated not only by Russia, but also by the small and despised Serbia, and became a dependency of Germany. To-day it has recovered a little under the direction of Berlin, but that desperate strain of forces does not deceive us: it is only a proof of the abdication of Austria-Hungary. We have lost all confidence in the vitality of Austria-Hungary, and we no more recognise its right to existence. Through ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... of Elizabeth's reign had been blessedly free from persecution. The increasing strain between England and the papacy was marked by a number of executions of Romanists. A recent Catholic estimate is that the total number of this faith who suffered under Elizabeth was 189, of whom 128 were ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... favourable confinement, from which she recovered a week ago. At the outset, the King fought shy of your raillery, but in a thousand discreditable ways you set your cap at him and forced him to pay you attention. If all the letters written to me (all of them in the same strain) are not preconcerted, if your misconduct is such as I am told it is, if you have dishonoured and disgraced your husband, then, madame, expect all that your excessive imprudence deserves. At this distance of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... off abruptly. There was a pause choked with those dizzy pulsations that fill moments of silence and strain. Then with a sob she flung herself against his breast and buried her face in his shoulder. "Don't answer!" she cried. "I'm ashamed ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... their gravest. They took in a soldier sobbing from the shock of the ceaseless shell fire. The moaning and wasp-like buzz of the flying metal, then the earth-shaking thud of its impact, and the roar of its high explosive, had played upon nerves not elastic enough to absorb the strain, till the man became a whimpering child. And they carried in a man shaking from ague, a big, fine fellow, trembling in every part, who could not lift a limb to walk. That which had been rugged enough for a lifetime of work became palsied after a few weeks of ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason

... speak of his absence, and I was very much puzzled by her silence. Her moodiness seemed to have increased, and, what was most remarkable, in proportion as she grew more and more reserved, the intenser were the bursts of affection which she exhibited for me. She would strain me to her bosom and kiss me, as if she and I were about to be parted forever. Then for hours she would remain sitting at her window, silently gazing, with that terrible, wistful gaze of ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... poverty for half a lifetime, might, if suddenly endowed with limitless fortune, retain, to a certain extent, balance of mind; but the same creature having lived the same number of years a wholly unlovely thing, suddenly awakening to the possession of entire physical beauty, might find the strain upon pure sanity greater and the balance less easy to preserve. The relief from the conscious or unconscious tension bred by the sense of imperfection, the calm surety of the fearlessness of meeting in any eye a look not lighted by pleasure, ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... a definite strain of mystical, almost Gnostic sensibility that shows up even among those hackers not actively involved with neo-paganism, Discordianism, or Zen. Hacker folklore that pays homage to 'wizards' and speaks of incantations and demons has too much ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

... nature, yet it flows as really and steadily, if not with as lithe a motion, as a liquid river. It is not a half solid mass like mud, which might roll slowly down an incline; it is solid, clear, transparent, brittle ice, which refuses to bend, and cracks sharply under a strain; nevertheless, it has its waves and rapids, cross-currents, eddies, and cascades, which, seen from a moderate distance, display all the grace and beauty of flowing water—as if a grand river in all its varied parts, calm ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... rattling talk that delivered them from the burden of saying anything especial, and they both laughed quite naturally at Barker's odd wit. They were grateful to him for what he did, and Claudius entertained some faint hope that he might go on in the same strain for the rest of the voyage. But Margaret pondered these things. She saw quickly that Barker had perceived that some embarrassment existed, and was spending his best strength in trying to make the meal a particularly gay one. But ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford

... along the moat to recite adulatory verses. Arion, being summoned for the like purpose, appeared on a dolphin four-and-twenty feet long, which carried in its belly a whole orchestra. A Sibyl, a "Salvage man" and an Echo posted in the park, all harangued in the same strain. Music and dancing enlivened the Sunday evening. Splendid fireworks were displayed both on land and water;—a play was performed;—an Italian tumbler exhibited his feats;—thirteen bears were baited;—there were three stag-hunts, and a representation of a country bridal, followed by running ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... collars, pulling heavy loads over uneven streets or soft ground, where the footing is not secure, and slipping are common causes. Young horses that do not know how to pull, or horses that are tired out by hard work, are predisposed to muscular strain, and are apt to suffer injury if forced to do heavy work. Sore shoulders, or an ignorant driver, may cause the animal to pull awkwardly and throw more strain on certain groups of muscles than they can stand. Rheumatism frequently causes shoulder lameness. The muscle usually ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... an intense overwhelming activation, the kinetic system is continuously or intermittently overstimulated through a considerable period of time, as long as each of the links in the kinetic chain takes the strain equally the result will be excessive energy conversion, excessive work done; but usually, under stress, some one link in the chain is unable to take the strain and then the evenly balanced work of the several organs of the kinetic system is disturbed. If the brain ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile

... the breach thus made. The Carthaginians then built counter-tunnels and came upon many workers who were unaware of what the other side was doing. These they killed, and also destroyed many by hurling blazing firewood into the diggings. Some of the allies now, burdened by the strain of the siege and displeased because their superiors did not come down with their full wages, made propositions to the Romans to betray the place. Hamilcar discovered their plot but did not disclose it, for fear of driving them into open ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio

... which there was a subdued light, like twilight, reigning, and in a moment her child appeared before her, smiling, and more beautiful than ever; with a silent cry she pressed him to her heart. A glorious strain of music sounded—now distant, now near. Never had she listened to such tones as these; they came from beyond a large dark curtain which separated the regions of death from the ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... completed. It was toil of the shrewdest, and he drew breath of blessed relief when the last man staggered up the plank with his burden. The bell was clanging its final summons, and the slowly revolving paddle-wheels were taking the strain from the mooring lines. Being near the bow line Griswold was one of the two who sprang ashore at the mate's bidding to cast off. He was backing the hawser out of the last of its half-hitches when a carriage was driven ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... bidding of the liquor the faintness from the exertion and reaction was leaving me. The slight hemorrhage from the strain to my weak lungs had ceased. I would live, I would live. ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... long as nothing happens to this tree, and the boat keeps fast where it is, there ain't nothing to make ourselves uncomfortable about. We'd best have a look at them lashings; I tell you, there is a tidy strain on them." ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... you very much. I hope I shall not have to put such a strain on you. It really does not depend upon me, otherwise I should have ordered the dress from ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... occasioned them. He expressed remorseful distress at having subjected me to such annoyance, saying, however, that my condition was not an uncommon one for painters' models to be thrown into by the nervous strain of the fixed look and attention, and rigid immobility of position, required of them; that he had known men succumb to it on a first experiment, but had thought me so strong, and so little liable to any purely nervous ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... natural that a long and deep wound should take longer to heal than a short and superficial one, because there is so much more work to be done in the conversion of blood-clot into granulation tissue, and this again into scar tissue that will be strong enough to stand the strain on the edges ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... the disruption, the animosity, the misunderstanding caused by war but notwithstanding the cruel strain we must firmly resolve to hold our International Alliance together. We must believe all through that good is stronger than evil, that justice and mercy are stronger than hatred and destruction, just as life is stronger than death. We women who have worked together for ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... the Jean picture ended. The music changed to the strain that had filled the great place when she entered, nearly an hour before. Jean sat up straight again and waited, alert, impatient, anxious to miss no smallest part of that picture which had startled her so when she had first looked at the screen. If the thing was ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower

... dedication; the first is addressed to the Countess of Burlington, the second to Mrs. Bovey, a learned and very beautiful widow, by some supposed to be identical with Sir Roger de Coverley's obdurate veuve, whilst the third, in a strain of loyal and affectionate eulogy, is to Steele's own wife, who may be supposed to be depicted in Du Guernier's frontispiece in the first volume. The 'Ladies' Library' and the Spectator papers assist us somewhat in forming ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts

... in the height of her glory, is not to be compared—a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts; whose morning drum-beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... Patriotic Register, at New York, and the Boston Chronicle echoed these sentiments, and the smaller opposition journals throughout the country re-echoed the strain. ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... he knew about snakes and their poison glands. After that he closed his eyes and relaxed both mentally and physically. The cool of nightfall had somewhat eased his thirst and the ache from the strain of the rawhide lines on his shoulders. He dozed ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... Phebe in a rug. Then, more frightened than hurt, the child had started for home, concocting, as she went, a plausible story to account for her charred apron. The maid came in to put the room to rights, and no one knew but Billy, as he ordered Patrick to move him to the sofa, that the sudden strain had done his invalid back a lasting injury. That was three days before, and now Theodora sat twisting his mother's note in her hands and wondering what it ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray

... brief but fiery prelude, which of itself struck by her fingers was enough to send life into stones, she broke forth into a strain, abrupt and impassioned, of wild Pindaric energy, that seemed the very war-cry of a people striking and dying for liberty. Her voice, inspired by a soul too large for mortal form, rang like a trumpet through the apartment, and seemed to startle the gods themselves ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... worth fifty, but we'll say thirty; then you can sell a garden patch anywhere, and pay off a debt of sixteen hundred dollars. It's not the principal I'm worried about, it's the interest and taxes. We'll have to strain to meet the payments. But as sure as we are sitting here to-night, we can sit down here ten years from now independent landowners, not struggling farmers any longer. The chance that father was ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather

... prelate. The answer of the Nation was confined to one indignant line. Proof was demanded and was not offered; but its very absence only deepened the malignity of the slanderers. Even in the midst of this storm the muse of Thomas Davis sang no discordant strain, nor did his pen trace one angry word. On the contrary, he summoned his whole energies to the task of harmonising the jarring elements around him. His inspiration rose to that unearthly height, whereon guidance becomes prophecy. Great, strong and unselfish convictions, ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... and kissed the baby's lips; my infant opened his innocent eyes and put his arms around Donald's neck, as much at ease as though he had known him all of his dear little life. Awake and rested, he must needs be tumbled about and played with, which our visitor seemed pleased to do. The strain would have been more than terrible, had it not been for the sweet influence of the child who occupied us both constantly on our long ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr

... fast to trees on either side, and by a careful study of the laws of leverage, we managed to push up the canoe a few inches at a time. We had some narrow escapes once or twice, when the ropes, under the excessive strain, snapped, and the canoe slid down again, dragging us with her. One tree, to which one of the ropes was fastened, broke, and in its fall just ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... had long been empty and the nourishment of his hard tack and "corn willie"[2] forgotten. His lips were parched with thirst and bleeding from cracks, the result of long-continued gun fire. His body was wearied by the heavy strain, his cheeks were gaunt from hunger and his eyes circled for want of rest. His whole bearing was of one who had passed through suffering untold, and yet there was no word of bitterness or complaint. His gratitude for ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West

... glare of sunshine which streamed through the new gap in the green forest roof. Much as I had envied the strong, I had never before suspected the delight of mere physical exertion. I now understood the wild gambols of the dog, and the madness which makes the horse gallop and strain onwards till he drops and dies. They fulfil their nature, as I was doing, and in that is ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... of originality that men so strain after, is not newness, as they vainly think, (there is nothing new,) it is only genuineness; it all depends on this single glorious faculty of getting to the spring of things and working out from that; it is the coolness, and clearness, and ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin

... there was nothing but a steady strain on the line, as if the end were tied to a dead tree at the bottom of the river, and this kept on for some ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn

... got for our sins to be in this place for a whole term, and if we are going to do the Hunted Fawn business all the time, life in the true sense of the word will become an impossibility. My nerves are so delicately attuned that the strain would simply reduce them to hash. We are not prepared to carry on a long campaign—the thing ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... long time, in the hardening strain of early manhood, I was afraid to go to Palestine, lest the journey should prove a disenchantment, and some of my religious beliefs be rudely shaken, perhaps destroyed. But that fear was removed by a little voyage to the gates of death, where it was made clear to ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... great gate through which the mausoleum was entered were three heads sculptured in stone. One was that of a man in the prime of manhood, with lips and eyebrows contracted and puckered, forehead wrinkled, eyes full of anxious strain, all telling of care, of pain, of sleepless struggle against difficulty, watchfulness to ward off danger. This was Life. The next was the face of the same man with the eyes closed and the cheeks sunken, and the expression of one who had fallen into sleep from pain—the struggle and agony ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various



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