strain

Meanings

Noun

• Race; lineage, pedigree.
• A particular variety of a microbe, virus, or other organism, usually a taxonomically infraspecific one.
• Hereditary character, quality, tendency or disposition.
• 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, etc.
• Language that is eloquent, poetic, or otherwise heightened.
• A kind or sort (of person etc.).
• Treasure.
• The blood-vessel in the yolk of an egg.
• The act of straining, or the state of being strained.
• A violent effort; an excessive and hurtful exertion or tension, as of the muscles.
• An injury resulting from violent effort; a sprain.
• A dimensionless measure of object deformation either referring to engineering strain or true strain.
• The track of a deer.

Verb

• To hold tightly, to clasp.
• To apply a force or forces to by stretching out.
• To damage by drawing, stretching, or the exertion of force.
• To act upon, in any way, so as to cause change of form or volume, as when bending a beam.
• To exert or struggle (to do something), especially to stretch (one's senses, faculties etc.) beyond what is normal or comfortable.
• To stretch beyond its proper limit; to do violence to, in terms of intent or meaning.
• To separate solid from liquid by passing through a strainer or colander
• To percolate; to be filtered.
• To make uneasy or unnatural; to produce with apparent effort; to force; to constrain.
• To urge with importunity; to press.
• hug somebody; to hold somebody tightly.
• To beget, generate (of light), engender, copulate (both of animals and humans), lie with, be born, come into the world.

Origin

• From Middle English streen, strene, streon, istreon, from Old English strēon, ġestrēon, from Proto-Germanic *streuną ("heap, treasure, profit, gain"), from Proto-Indo-European *strew- ("to spread, strew") (cognate with Old Saxon gistriuni, Old High German gistriuni ("gain, property, wealth, business"), Latin strues ("heap")). Confused in Middle English with the related noun strend, strynd, strund, from Old English strȳnd ("race; stock"), from strēonan, strȳnan. Related also to Dutch struinen ("to prowl, root about, rout").
• From Middle English straynen, streinen, streynen, from Old French estreindre (whence French étreindre), from Latin stringere.
• From Middle English strenen, from Old English strēonan, strīenan, strȳnan, from Proto-Germanic *striunijaną.