Defn: 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.
Their heavenly harps a lower strain began. Dryden.
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. Such take too high a strain at first. Bacon. The genius and strain of the book of Proverbs. Tillotson. It [Pilgrim's Progress] seems a novelty, and yet contains Nothing but sound and honest gospel strains. Bunyan.
4. Turn; tendency; inborn disposition. Cf. 1st Strain. Because heretics have a strain of madness, he applied her with some corporal chastisements. Hayward.
STRAINABLE
Strain"a*ble, a.
1. Capable of being strained.
2. Violent in action. Holinshed.
STRAINABLY
Strain"a*bly, adv.
Defn: Violently. Holinshed.
STRAINED
Strained, a.
1. Subjected to great or excessive tension; wrenched; weakened; as, strained relations between old friends.