8. To make uneasy or unnatural; to produce with apparent effort; to
force; to constrain.
He talks and plays with Fatima, but his mirth Is forced and strained.
Denham.
The quality of mercy is not strained. Shak.
9. To urge with importunity; to press; as, to strain a petition or invitation. Note, if your lady strain his entertainment. Shak.
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. 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.
STRAIN
Strain, v. i.
1. To make violent efforts. "Straining with too weak a wing." Pope. To build his fortune I will strain a little. Shak.
2. To percolate; to be filtered; as, water straining through a sandy soil.
STRAIN
Strain, n.
1. The act of straining, or the state of being strained. Specifically: — (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. Whether any poet of our country since Shakespeare has exerted a greater variety of powers with less strain and less ostentation. Landor. Credit is gained by custom, and seldom recovers a strain. Sir W. Temple. (b) (Mech. Physics)
Defn: A change of form or dimensions of a solid or liquid mass, produced by a stress. Rankine.
2. (Mus.)