Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Strain   Listen
noun
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." "Credit is gained by custom, and seldom recovers a strain."
(b)
(Mech. Physics) A change of form or dimensions of a solid or liquid mass, produced by a stress.
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. "Their heavenly harps a lower strain began."
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." "Such take too high a strain at first." "The genius and strain of the book of Proverbs." "It (Pilgrim's Progress) seems a novelty, and yet contains Nothing but sound and honest gospel strains."
4.
Turn; tendency; inborn disposition. Cf. 1st Strain. "Because heretics have a strain of madness, he applied her with some corporal chastisements."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Strain" Quotes from Famous Books



... slipped over the edge of the abyss with all the coolness and bravery of her race, and the strong hands began to lower her. Foot by foot she slid down the face of the cliff, and at last those above felt the strain upon their muscles suddenly relieved. The woman was ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... These will readily reduce the vegetation. And to preserve the crystal clearness of the water, some Mussels may be allowed to burrow in the sand, where they will perform the office of animated filters. They strain off matters held in suspension in the water, by means of their siphons and ciliated gills. With these precautions, a well-balanced tank will long retain all the pristine purity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... the committee had objections to offer or questions to ask she would like the privilege of answering; but as none of the committee availed themselves, she proceeded for fifteen minutes in about the same strain as her predecessors. Calls being made for Mr. Spencer and eliciting no reply from that gentleman, Mrs. Blake said they should consider him ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... Fleming had, at this time, some anxiety about her. He remembered the first days of his acquaintance with her, and the dull despair into which she had fallen, before he sent her to Nethermuir, and he would not have been surprised if, after the long strain upon mind and body through which she had passed, the same suffering had fallen upon her again. Therefore it was that he used both his authority as a physician and his influence as a friend, to prevent any allusion to business matters; ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson

... the fat in the pan two tablespoonfuls of finely chopped mushrooms, a half cup of good stock; boil carefully for five minutes. Have ready rounds of bread toasted; dish the mushrooms on these; put on top a good sized piece of carefully boiled marrow; season the sauce with salt, and strain it over. Use these as a garnish around the edge of the plate, or you may simply dish and serve them for breakfast, or ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson

... note how Mrs. Zabriskie was bearing herself at this critical moment, and casting a hurried glance in her direction she perceived her tall figure swaying from side to side, as if under an intolerable strain of feeling. Her eyes were on the clock, the hands of which seemed to creep with snail-like pace along the dial, when unexpectedly, and a full minute before the minute hand had reached the stroke of five, Violet caught a movement on her part, saw the flash of something round ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... Quentin—the lowest rung, so to speak—became the climber. From Wallace's shoulders, he easily gained the top of the wall, and was able to reach down a helping hand to Black as he made his way slowly up Wallace's back. Then both men hauled Wallace up with some trouble, for the strain had been almost too much for him, and he ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... adding five new judges, so as to vote down the four old ones. Not only so, but it ended in the judge's sitting down on that very bench, as one of the five new judges so as to break down the four old ones." In this strain Mr. Lincoln occupied most of his time. But the debate was a very equal thing, and the contest did not prove a 'walk ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... Santissima Madre, vamos!" yelled our guides, and the cry was taken up by the Mexicans, in a shrill wild tone that jarred strangely upon our ears, and made the horses start and strain forward. Hurra! on we go, through thorns and bushes, which scratch and flog us, and tear our clothes to rags. We shall be naked if this lasts long. It is a regular race. In front the two guides, stooping, nodding, bowing, crouching down, first to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... notwithstanding this they showed not the slightest injury in the spring of 1934. The growth made during the summer of 1934 has been remarkable and if this unusually vigorous growth survives the coming winter it would seem as though we have an exceptionally hardy strain. The nut characters and productiveness of these varieties have not yet been determined in Michigan, but if they are equal to some of the trees of the same origin, then we will have very valuable trees. These strains have been named Crath ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... revolving round the central fires; and in those worlds the energy of an all-perfect Mind displayed in endless forms. But, neither sense nor imagination are big enough to comprehend the boundless extent, with all its glittering furniture. Though the labouring mind exert and strain each power to its utmost reach, there still stands out ungrasped a surplusage immeasurable. Yet all the vast bodies that compose this mighty frame, how distant and remote soever, are by some secret mechanism, some Divine art and force, linked in a mutual dependence and intercourse ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley

... There was one strain which the trumpeter might sound that could not be mistaken. It would at once convey to the concealed hearers all the truth, and gently woo them home. It would be at once a note of victory, a song of joy, a call of love, a sound of peace, and ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... for you," said Roger very firmly. "My partner and I find it hard enough work cooking for ourselves. We are under great nervous and physical strain, Mrs. von Minden, and I must tell you frankly, it will be extremely inconvenient to have you here. This rough camp is no place for ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... the county of Fincastle prolonged the strain of public affection and applause by assuring Patrick Henry that it would support and justify him at the risk ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler

... The thudding of the hoofs was so rapid and so punishing to his senses that for a moment he did not realize where he actually was. Yet with the sheer instinct of horsemanship he clung to the saddle in some fashion, until finally he was fairly forced to relax the muscular strain, and so by accident fell into the secret of the seat—loose, ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... us to sweep the remains of the French armament from the Levant and the Mediterranean, and how the probable accession of other allies might wrest from the republic both Italy and the Netherlands, Pitt followed in the same strain, eloquently unfolding the favourable prospects of another coalition. The picture he drew made a favourable impression on the house; and Mr. Tierney's motion was lost. Moreover, all sums required for Russia were voted, and three millions more also were granted to his majesty, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... for several hours, but the long strain of the preceding day did not make him overreach the time he had set for himself, and he was up at six o'clock. Wegaruk had not forgotten her old habits, and a tub filled with cold water was waiting for him. He bathed, shaved himself, put on fresh clothes, and promptly at ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... drawn from the busy throng To the sweet retreat of the silent hours, Low voices whisper of higher powers. He catches the strain of some far-off song, And the sham fades out and his eyes can see, Not the man he is in the day's hot strife And the greed and grind of a selfish life, But the soul of the man he ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest

... with smoke, his muscles trembling with the terrible strain, he stood at his post. The minutes seemed interminable hours, and still he worked, with heart pumping painfully, and mind that seemed to have no thought save to reach down for another and another, ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... resembled them as much as a thin, light-yellow mulatto lad may resemble a big, stout, middle- aged white man. It was the exotic complexion and the slightness of his build which had put me off so completely. Now I saw in him unmistakably the Jacobus strain, weakened, attenuated, diluted as it were in a bucket of water—and I refrained from finishing my speech. I had intended to say: "Crack this brute's head for him." I still felt the conclusion to be sound. But it is no trifling responsibility to counsel parricide to any ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... people did inelegant and irrational things. They waved flags—nasty little flags. This child of the ages, this last fruit of the gigantic and tragic tree of life, could no more than stick its fingers in its ears as say, "Oh, please, do all stop!" and then as the strain grew intenser and intenser set itself with feeble pawings now to clamber "Au-dessus de la Melee," and now to—in some weak way—stop the conflict. ("Au-dessus de la Melee"—as the man said when they asked him where he was when the bull gored his sister.) The efforts to stop the conflict ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells

... of Sho[u]gen sat frightened; at the tale, and at this radical way of finding an exit from the situation. The mother's heart was full of pity for the distracted son, whose haggard looks showed the strain of the past weeks. Besides she was a woman, and as such fully believed in and feared the curse of this dead O'Iwa, one who had died without funeral rites or prayer. "Fortunately the honoured father now is on the night watch at the castle. He is at home, drinking his wine. His ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... respected the allies of the Avars. The same prudence would instruct the nephew of Justinian to imitate the liberality of his uncle, and to purchase the blessings of peace from an invincible people, who delighted and excelled in the exercise of war. The reply of the emperor was delivered in the same strain of haughty defiance, and he derived his confidence from the God of the Christians, the ancient glory of Rome, and the recent triumphs of Justinian. "The empire," said he, "abounds with men and horses, and arms sufficient to defend our frontiers, and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... withdrew and Stanton turned to the President. Lincoln's face was terrible in its strain, for the words "in the moment of victory" had rung the knell ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... that renewed efforts are being made to introduce reforms in the internal administration of the island. Persuaded, however, that a proper regard for the interests of the United States and of its citizens entitles it to relief from the strain to which it has been subjected by the difficulties of the questions and the wrongs and losses which arise from the contest in Cuba, and that the interests of humanity itself demand the cessation of the strife ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... gave the head waiter good news from the front, a stork and a sea-gull with clipped wings posed at the fountain. What tales of battle were told in sight of this incongruous pair whose antics relieved the strain of war! When the stork took a step or two the gull plodded along after him and when the gull moved the stork also moved, the two never being more than three or four feet apart. Yet each maintained an attitude of detachment as if loath to admit the slightest affection for each other. ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... meteors. A powerful electromagnet, with a thin, strong wire fastened to it, to be hurled from a helix-gun. He set the drum on which the wire was wound upon the metal at his feet, fastened it with its magnetic anchor, wondering if it would stand the terrific strain when the wire tightened. ...
— Salvage in Space • John Stewart Williamson

... of cigars at Oscar and surveyed him with his wistful smile. There were dark circles round Jim's eyes that in his childhood had told of nerve strain. Jim at that moment wondered what Iron Skull would have made of the present situation. He was silent so long that Oscar ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow

... of all, as it is the longest; there are in it passages of description as clear and vivid as the landscapes of Church and Turner, and touches of profound and glowing imagination; and the whole poem, in spite of its obscurity, affects the mind like a strain of high and mournful music. The Sonnets are all more or less harsh and unintelligible,—a criticism which applies to many of the other poems. Miss Whitney evidently despises foot-notes as utterly as Tennyson, and leaves much unexplained ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... Fools, leave off your Drunken fits. Obsequious be and I'll recall your Wits, From perfect Madness to a modest Strain For farthings four I'll fetch you back again, Enable all your mene with tricks of State, Enter and sip and then attend your Fate; Come Drunk or Sober, for a gentle Fee, Come n'er so Mad, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... attention was centered on Japan, and to the amazement of the western world the eastern empire defeated the Russian Colossus most severely and consistently both on land and on sea. The financial burden of the war, however, was a severe strain on the limited resources of the young world power and it was forced to accept mediation proffered by the United States at a time when not all its objects had been accomplished. Peace was concluded at Portsmouth ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... an hour, six pounds of coarsely powdered Chinese rhubarb in six gallons of water, acidulated with two and a half fluid ounces of sulphuric acid; strain the decoction, and submit the residue to a second ebullition in a like quantity of acidulated water; strain as before, and submit it again to a third ebullition. Unite the three decoctions, and add, by small portions, recently powdered ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... than in age; such as is a fluent and luxuriant speech; which becomes youth well, but not age: so Tully saith of Hortensius, Idem manebat, neque idem decebat. The third is of such, as take too high a strain at the first, and are magnanimous, more than tract of years can uphold. As was Scipio Africanus, of whom Livy saith in effect, ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... Mooka fell and lay still, but was dragged to her feet and hurried onward again. The little hunter's own strength was almost gone, when a low moan rose steadily above the howl and hiss of the gale. It was the spruce woods, bending their tops to the blast and groaning at the strain. With a wild whoop Noel plunged forward, and the next instant they were safe within the woods. All around them the flakes sifted steadily, silently down into the thick covert, while the storm passed with a great roar ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long

... battle of Le Cateau, however, the Germans slackened their pursuit for a very brief interval; partly because the terrific strain of marching and fighting was telling upon them no less than upon the Allies, partly because the engineers had blown up the bridges over every river, canal, and stream, behind the retreating armies, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... watches of the night were set," says Herodotus, in his animated and graphic strain—"the night itself was far advanced—a universal and utter stillness prevailed throughout the army, buried in repose—when Alexander, the Macedonian prince, rode secretly from the Persian camp, and, coming to the outposts of the Athenians, whose line was immediately opposed to his own, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... rocks, cut their way only through beds of rough gravel, and their bare surroundings were desolate without grandeur—almost mean to eyes that had not yet pierced to the soul of them. Nor had he yet learned to admire the lucent brown of the bog waters. There seemed to be in the boy a strain of some race used to a richer home; and yet all the time the frozen regions of the north drew his fancy tenfold ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... was not a manufacture of politicians, for it is seen in the private letters of the friends of constitutional liberty which have come to light subsequently to the events; it was not a transient enthusiasm, for the same strain was continued during the years preceding the war. The praise was bestowed on a town small in territory and comparatively small in population. Such were the cities of Greece in the era of their renown. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... into a bunk with coarse but spotless sheets, and very rough but comfortable blankets, where in less than four minutes he was sound asleep, worn out, as even the pluckiest eleven-year-old boy would be, with the strain on his small body ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman

... head, and looked so white and faint that Harold was alarmed, and took her at once to his mother, who, scarcely less frightened than himself, made her lie down, and brought her a piece of toast and a cup of milk, which revived her a little. But the strain upon her nerves for the last few days, and the fasting on bread and water proved too much for the child, who for a week or more lay up in her little room, burning with fever, and talking strange things at intervals, of diamonds, and state prison, and accessories, ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... and clapped my arms around her, showing all the roughness of one who has no mind that his captive shall escape or even unduly struggle, a thrill gushed through me so potent that I was like to have fainted, and it was only by supreme strain of will that I held unbrokenly on with the ceremonial. I, who had never embraced a woman with aught but the arm of roughness before, now held pressed to me one whom I loved with an infinite tenderness, and the revelation ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... tremendous, knock-me-down figures in the least degree elegant, and as for their eyes, they are so tall that I never could strain my neck enough to ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... understand you, Val," Anne said to him one day, in tones of pain. "You are not as you used to be." And his only answer was to strain his wife to his bosom with ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... grasps the two ends of the skin, and placing his knee upon it and slowly drawing the skin across the knife edge, he brings his weight to bear upon it. If the operator is skilled and experienced the skin yields quickly, when needed, to the strain applied and a uniform texture is secured. The operation of transforming the skin into leather is now finished, but age is necessary to secure perfect pliability and softness. The skins are, therefore, laid away to let the slow chemical ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various

... on this day, came leaning on his staff and with considerable strain, as far as the street for a little relaxation, he suddenly caught sight, approaching from the off side, of a Taoist priest with a crippled foot; his maniac appearance so repulsive, his shoes of straw, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... Lord Ellenborough, and his brothers upon the bench, darted their eyes at me, as if they meant at once to abash and deter me from saying any thing. I, however, was not to be put down in this manner; and I began, in my homely strain, to address them. But, before five words were out of my mouth, Lord Ellenborough interrupted me, and in one of his stern tones, demanded, if I came there to argue a point of law, upon which they had already decided? I answered firmly, "I am summoned here to shew cause why a second ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... weak point in Hatha Yoga is that action on this line cannot reach beyond the astral plane, and the great strain imposed on the comparatively intractable matter of the physical plane sometimes leads to atrophy of the very organs, the activity of which is necessary for effecting the changes in consciousness that would be useful. The Hatha Yogi gains control over the bodily ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant

... There is a sort of strain and mystery which I cannot define. I am not a coward, you know, but sometimes I am afraid and feel alone in the world. There is Leon, of course; but Leon is no good, ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... asked, according to his former practice, for the reference of such an important point to a Church Council; he would be pledged, so to speak, "for both his superiors (the Emperor and the Pope), from the answers and commands received from them in similar cases." In the same strain wrote the truly venerable and aged Bishop of Basel, with the addition: "although we are otherwise inclined with our whole heart to favor you in all possible things (God knows), because we are not unmindful of the many deeds of kindness shown to ourselves and our monastery," From ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger

... speed would soon take them out of danger from the slow-firing heavy guns. Another factor was the introduction of longer guns, and what are termed "slow burning" powders. These last do not explode with such sudden violence as the ordinary powder, so that there is less sudden strain on the gun, while a steadier pressure on the shot is kept up. The long gun enables the pressure of the gases formed by the burning powder to act longer on the shot, with the result that a higher velocity is given to it, not ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... there goes the bird; you sit down and study the landscape, or send your thoughts out toward France or Spain, or across the sea to your own land, and yet, when you get them back, there is that song above you, almost as unceasing as the light of a star. This strain indeed suggests some rare pyrotechnic display, musical sounds being substituted for the many-colored sparks and lights. And yet I will add, what perhaps the best readers do not need to be told, that neither the lark-song, nor any other bird-song in the open air and under the sky, is as noticeable ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... 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

... coming to Osimo, was greeted, notwithstanding his great humility, and brought into the town, with great honors. The next day he preached on the vanity of the world, in so persuasive a strain, that all his hearers, penetrated with compunction, turned their thoughts seriously to their reformation, and thirty ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... bookish clan that cannot understand The rhythm and the cadences they never can command— But what is that to him that knows and touches all the strings Of hearts responsive to his strain when ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy

... satisfaction. "That is faster than mortal man ever travelled before, and I think no one will ever equal our speed. We have broken all records—even our own. Now I will slow down, but we must do it gradually, so as not to strain ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood

... sir, you are surely not surprised," said Dr. Ormond. "Your wife has been sitting up with her child every night for nearly a month—the strain upon her, bodily and mental, has been enormous, and the reaction is of course trying. She will want a good deal of care, that is all. Come now," he went on cheerfully, as Clarissa opened her eyes, to find her head ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... tell you about it briefly, though I warn you in advance that you will find it a great strain upon your confidence in my veracity. It may even shatter that confidence beyond repair; but I cannot help that. I hold that it is a man's duty in this life to give to the world the benefit of his experience. All that he sees he should set down exactly as he sees it, and so ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs

... 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 hand, ...
— The Edge of the Knife • Henry Beam Piper

... all seasons of the year: she had read somewhere that stripes impart to the most rotund of figures an appearance of slimness totally at variance with the facts. As for blue and white, her favorite combination of stripes, any fabric in those colors looked cool and clean; and there was a vague strain of poetry in Mrs. Daggett's nature which made her lift her eyes to a blue sky filled with floating white clouds with a sense of rapturous satisfaction wholly unrelated to the ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley

... the boys, carried away by the sudden relief of the strain when it had seemed that all was over. "Hooray! ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering

... instinct of a town-stroller, George knew himself to be in Piccadilly. Here he could find his way blindfold; and freed from the strain of geographical uncertainty, his mind ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... made them the first visit, where they received us with extraordinary civility, and owning the obligation. But I do, contrary to my expectation, find her something a proud and vain-glorious woman, in telling the number of her servants and family and expences. He is also so, but he was ever of that strain. But here he showed me the model of his houses that he is going to build in Cornhill and Lumbard-street; but he hath purchased so much there that it looks like a little town, and must have cost him ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... at S. Athanasius that morning, and the Rev. Thomas Todd was later on conveyed, still shouting fragments of circus dialogue, to the County Lunatic Asylum. The curate's mind had temporarily given way beneath the strain of the position in which he had found himself placed, and of the horrible future that lay before him, and his insanity had taken the form of an imaginary return to the scenes of his early life. When, some two years later, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... stopped beating, and the thin lips and tongue, as dry as cartridge-paper, now took up the strain, while the mutilated hand clutched convulsively, as if there were fifty fingers fingering knives ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... motion, striking twelve. How, when it struck twelve, a whole army of puppets went through many ingenious evolutions; and, among them, a huge puppet-cock, perched on the top, crowed twelve times, loud and clear. Or how it was wonderful to see this cock at great pains to clap its wings, and strain its throat; but obviously having no connection whatever with its own voice; which was deep within the clock, a ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... verses of a Chinese princess, who laments that she had been condemned by her parents to a distant exile, under a Barbarian husband; who complains that sour milk was her only drink, raw flesh her only food, a tent her only palace; and who expresses, in a strain of pathetic simplicity, the natural wish, that she were transformed into a bird, to fly back to her dear country; the object of her tender and perpetual ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... majority of cases to find the boats and nets, but to disburse all the charges of the fishing where the proceeds of the catch are insufficient to do it, and 'to keep on' the fishermen by advances for their food and rents. Thus the aggregate of the debts is a continual strain on the curer's capital, and payment is as uncertain as the chances of fishermen individually getting extraordinary hauls of fish. There is still further the risk of the debtor dying, in which event the debt is wholly lost beyond the value of the boat and nets. On the death of a fish-curer recently, ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... from B to the second diagonal, and so on. For a 3 inch pitch the measurement would be taken along the horizontal line, starting from the 3 on the line A B, and so on. On the left of the diagram or scale is marked the lbs. strain each pitch will safely transmit per inch width of wheel ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose

... steer, Into the sea drop the oars of his men. Move can they, the King's lads, the straight oars in the water. The widows stand and wonder at the oar-strokes so swift, The thole knows hurt when seventy oars do move her I' the water ere the war-folk on the sea their oars do strain. Northmen the serpent row (nailed is she) out on the billow-stream icy; 'Tis ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson

... are already working yourself to death," protested Miss Lady. "Doctor Wyeth said last week that you could not stand the strain. The rest of us ought to do ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice

... behalf of 'Chronicles and Characters,' to which you so kindly and generously give renewed expression, because I have just seen what I cannot but think a very unjust notice of the book in the 'Athenaeum.' In endeavouring to illustrate a continuous strain of thought passing over a wide range of subject, one of my chief aims was diversity of form and variety of style; but there can be no doubt that versatility is always in danger of running into imitation. Play always on the Jew's ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... breasts firmer.[171] Pregnancy may, indeed, often become visible soon after conception by the brighter eye, the livelier glance, resulting from greater vascular activity, though later, with the increase of strain, the face may tend to become somewhat thin and distorted. The hair, Barnes states, assumes a new vigor, even though it may have been falling out before. The temperature rises; the weight increases, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... taunted with this subject for upwards of thirty years; and after so long a familiarity with reproach, his sensibility to the scandalous imputation must now have been much diminished, if not entirely extinguished. The other poem is partly in the same strain, but extended to greater length, by a mixture of common jocular ribaldry of the Roman soldiers, expressed nearly in the same terms which Caesar's legions, though strongly attached to his person, scrupled not to ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... discover it. Their hospitality had been generous and unreserved. Their influence upon my character—morally—had been an incalculable benefit. I had enjoyed being among them. The rhythm of happiness that swept like a strain of sweet music through all their daily life, touched a chord in ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley

... rest-house where the night-shift can turn in and sleep inside of stone walls, without crying babies and scolding wives clattering around. This heat every summer costs us thousands of dollars in delays, from wear and tear and extra strain—tempers and nerves giving out, men getting frantic and jerking things. I believe it breeds a form of acute mania when it keeps on ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... carts cannot swear without using (inserting) the name of my son. These are the two things which make the arm of my son so burdensome.' She continued a little longer in French till, observing the children did not understand her, she added in patois a long harangue in the same strain, a diatribe on the blasphemy of the age and the desecration of the Sabbath— 'only some old women go to mass.' After her speech, and having twice charged the children to make known her discourse, 'a tout mon peuple,' she glided up the path between the ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... toil stirs strongly below the soft cadence; the full, fierce ardor mounts heavenward. Phases now alternate of insistent rearing on the strenuous motive and of fateful submission in the marching strain, that is massed in higher and bigger chorus. As gathers the stress of climax, the brass blowing a defiant blast, the very vehemence brings a new resolution that is uttered in ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp

... said, "warily, the masked criminal of the Clutching Hand might have been seen down below us in the alley. Up here, Miss Dodge, worn out by the strain of her father's death, let us say, was nervously trying to read, to do anything that would take her mind off the tragedy. Perhaps she ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve

... subject to medical authority,—the marriage of Crosbie and Alexandrina was spoken of much more frequently at the Small House. It was not a subject which Mrs Dale or Bell would have chosen for conversation; but Lily would refer to it. She would begin by doing so almost in a drolling strain, alluding to herself as a forlorn damsel in a play-book; and then she would go on to speak of his interests as a matter which was still of great moment to her. But in the course of such talking she would too often break down, showing by some sad word or ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... Morven's woods when countless tempests roar, When from the height a hundred torrents pour, Like storm-clouds rushing through the vault of heaven, As when the mighty main on shore is driven, So wide, so loud, so dark, so fierce the strain When met the angry chiefs on Lena's plain. The king rushed forward with resistless might, Dreadful as Trenmor's awe-inspiring sprite, When on the fitful blast he comes again To Morven, his forefather's loved domain. Loud in the gale ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various

... thing was to secure the brig properly, in order that she might bear the necessary strain. This was done very much as has been described already, in the account of the manner in which she was secured and supported in order to raise the schooner at the Dry Tortugas. An anchor was laid abreast and to windward, and purchases ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... civilised country." The speech was well received. The impression produced two days later by Byron's "Childe Harold" was as instantaneous as it has proved deep and lasting. Even the dashes of scepticism, with which he darkened his strain, served only to heighten its success. The Prince Regent had the poet presented to him, and the author of "Marmion" offered his praise. In the following May appeared the wild and beautiful fragment, "The Giaour." This new offspring of his genius was hailed with wonder and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... for what could words avail in such a situation? Hearing the door open, Madame Dupont started, for her nerves were all a-quiver with the strain she had been under. A servant came in and spoke to her, and she said to George, "It is the doctor. If you need me, I shall be in the ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair

... are in such an emergency! The time seemed to me stretched out to an agonising length; but this second strain came to an end, and Sandho stood motionless, with his flanks heaving beneath me. I could hear his breath come hard as the Boers galloped on abreast, closer and closer; and then the thud, thud, thud grew less ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn

... driven; O'er cliff abrupt, and shrubby mound, And river broad, impetuous bound; Now plunge amid the forest shades, Glance through the openings of the glades; 80 Now o'er the level valley sweep, Now with short step strain up the steep; While backward from the hunter's eyes The landscape like a torrent flies. At last an ancient wood they gain'd, By pruner's axe yet unprofaned. High o'er the rest, by nature rear'd, The oak's majestic boughs ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... had overstepped even his own ambition. He had finished the term with an ovation from his fellows, and he had been urged to go with Prof. Laird's son to the outer Hebrides. And now that the strain of his study was over, and the goal, so far, nobly won, he could afford to remember his sister. Indeed David deserves more justice than these words imply. He had often thought of her since that March afternoon when he had put her into the train for Stirling. But he really believed ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr

... at Farlingford a certain reluctance to begin. It is in the blood, I suppose. There is, you know, in the Bourbon blood a certain strain of—well, let us say of reluctance to begin. Others call it by a different name. One is not a Bourbon for nothing, I suppose. And everything—even if it be a vice—that serves to emphasise identity is to be cultivated. But, as I say, you will have to put your back into it later on. At present ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... therefor, with the land as security, one appears to have assumed a moderately heavy burden. Then, when to this one adds the enormous expense of cutting streets through the most beautiful of the sylvan glades, the building of sewers, and the erection of sample houses, to say nothing of the strain upon the intellect in the selection of names for the streets and lanes and circles that spring into being, one cannot but wonder how the master mind behind it ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... faithful soother of my pain, This life's long weary pilgrimage to cheer, Vouchsafes beside my nightly couch to appear, With her sweet speech attempering reason's strain; O'ercome by tenderness, and terror vain, I cry, "Whence comest thou, O spirit blest?" She from her beauteous breast A branch of laurel and of palm displays, And, answering, thus she says. "From th' empyrean seat of holy love Alone ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... he agrees with Herodotus, when he declares that these two poets made the theogony for the Greeks, and gave to the gods their names, and assigned to them their honors and their arts, and described their appearances. But he then continues in a very different strain from the pious historian.(20) "Homer," he says,(21) "and Hesiod ascribed to the gods whatever is disgraceful and scandalous among men, yea, they declared that the gods had committed nearly all unlawful acts, such as theft, adultery, and fraud." "Men seem ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller

... rather short, and that if it ran out, all was over. Keeping his eyes on the water only, and the headlong speed of the fugitive, headlong over a stake he fell, and took a deep wound from another stake. Scarcely feeling it, up he jumped, lifting his rod, which had fallen flat, and fearing to find no strain on it. "Aha, he is not gone yet!" he cried, as the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... of the glory of Christ's salvation. Coming down, I spoke quietly to some whom I knew to be under deep concern. They were soon heard together weeping bitterly; many more joined them. Mr. Cumming spoke to them in a most touching strain, while I dealt privately with several in the vestry. Their cries were often very bitter and piercing, bitterest when the freeness of Christ was pressed upon them, and the lion's nearness. Several were offended; but I felt no hesitation as to our duty to declare ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar

... you. How could I be so blind? It is you who have written to me, and in the same strain; you have robbed yourself,—you, poor sufferer,—to throw extravagance into these strong hands. And why? What am I to you?" An expression of actual fondness softened Lucretia's face as she looked up at him and replied: ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... fresh, whereof we have use for the fish and fowl. We use them also for burials of some natural bodies, for we find a difference in things buried in earth, or in air below the earth, and things buried in water. We have also pools, of which some do strain fresh water out of salt, and others by art do turn fresh water into salt. We have also some rocks in the midst of the sea, and some bays upon the shore for some works, wherein is required the air and vapour of the sea. We have likewise violent streams and cataracts, which serve ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... be some special luck in them, the jewels of a woman who had so tragically died. They had been ready to make a social affair of the private view held in the "Maple Room" before the auction. And now the whole spectacular business was capped by a sensation so dramatic as to strain credulity to its limit. She could not believe it; yet here it was glaring at her from the first page. Still—it might be an exaggeration, a mistake. She must go back to the beginning and ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain

... as little upon them. His eyes were constantly directed towards one object; the window at which the child was accustomed to sit. If he withdrew them for a moment, it was only to glance at a clock in some neighbouring shop, and then to strain his sight once more in the old quarter with increased earnestness ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... and he struck a match to look at his watch. It was four o'clock. He was still exhausted. His limbs ached from the tremendous strain of the fifty-mile race across the Barren, but he could no longer sleep. Something— he did not attempt to ask himself what it was— was urging him to action. ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood

... comfortable homes of the town. The family had been collected in the parlors since midnight of Wednesday. They had not dared to retire to sleep, but clung about the mother and mistress. The windows were close shut, the rooms lit by candles, and pale, jaded with the long nervous strain, momentarily fearing the breaking in of those they had been taught to look upon as little better than fiends, their hollow eyes showed they were perilously near the limit of human endurance. I earnestly vouched for the good intentions of our generals, and promised ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... The arrival of Johnston on the previous evening and his lieutenant Kirby Smith at the crisis of the battle (for Patterson's part in the plan had completely failed), turned the scale, and the Federals, not yet disciplined to bear the strain of a great battle, broke and fled in wild rout. The equally raw Confederates were in no condition to pursue. A desultory duel between the forces of Rosecrans and Robert E. Lee in West Virginia, which ended in the withdrawal of the Confederates, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... peculiar actions sprang from the old man's fancy—but the house, her surroundings, her loneliness, contradicted her. To her over-acute senses the thought of Blackburn in that room, so often consecrated to the formula of death, suggested a special and unaccountable menace. Under such a strain the supernatural assumed ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp

... delight and admiration. As you continued to listen, you would notice that he mimicked almost every sound that occurred within hearing. When any of the others commenced to sing, he would catch the strain—as it were, from their lips—and, giving it in a far higher and bolder tone, shame them into silence. This, I need hardly tell you, was the ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... didn't do any of the laughing," said Hewson, willing to relieve himself from the strain of this high mood, and yet anxious not to fall too far below it. "Perhaps I should, though, if I hadn't been the victim of ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells

... the hearers. Indeed, this word phrenetic or maniac is no reproach; it is identical with mantic—prophetic.[966] And often when diseases and plagues have fallen upon men for the sins of their forefathers, some phrensy too has broken forth, and in prophetic strain has pointed out a remedy, showing how the sin might be expiated, and the gods appeased (by prayers, and purifications, and atoning rites).... So many and yet more great effects could I tell you of the phrensy which comes from the gods."[967] ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... all the blood alight in his veins; it seemed to him he could hear his pulses beating. Never in his life before had joy and passion met within him to stir him as they did now, but in natures where there is a strong, deep strain of intellectuality the body never quite conquers the mind, the light of the intellect never quite goes down, however strong the sea, however high the waves of animal passion on which it rides; and now Hamilton felt the great appeal to ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross

... the sake of the coarse and tangible results of success, but because humanity is so constituted that a vast number of us would never be impelled to those stretches of exertion which make, us wiser and more capable men, if it were not for the absolute necessity of putting on our faculties all the strain they will bear, for the purpose of "getting on" in the ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley

... his undaunted little band of adventurers. Gwynne's purpose in remaining with McGeorge was twofold. Not only was he keenly eager to meet the Indians but somewhere back in his mind was the struggling hope that, given time, Rachel Carter's reserve would crack under the fresh strain put upon it and she would voluntarily, openly break the silence that now stood as an absolutely insurmountable obstacle to his marriage with Viola. Not until Rachel Carter herself cleared the path could they find the ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... to lift a vast stone, but they staggered under its weight, and at last fell and lay beneath it; then leaning from his saddle Usheen lifted the stone with one hand and flung it five yards. But with the strain the saddle girth broke, and Usheen came to the ground; the white steed shook himself and neighed, then galloped away, bearing Niam with him, and Usheen lay with all his strength gone from him—a feeble old man. The Island of Youth could only ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... By about 1895 the strain on the Voluntary Schools had become hard to bear. The Church resented the encroachments of the State on its ancient privilege of training the young, and the larger resources which the Board Schools ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... quickly tie his front and hind feet together, so tightly and in such a way that he cannot get up. Then you throw up your hands or your hat, and your time is taken. While you are out of your saddle your horse will, if well trained, himself hold the steer down by carefully adjusting the strain on the rope which still connects the animal's horns with the horn on ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... that the age we seek thus toilsomely to illustrate and realize is too remote to justify the attempt, that our civilisation is of too different a type from the Hellenic, and that a gulf of three-and-twenty centuries is too much for our sight to strain across. But is not the Hellenic life at least less remote now to Western Europe than it has ever been since the Northern invasions? Though the separation in time widens does not the separation in thought decrease? Is not one civilisation more like another than it can be to any barbarism? ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar

... was sounding its inspiring notes as Peggy left the guard-house, and slowly made her way across the parade-ground. There was a note of pathos in the strain which seemed peculiarly impressive, and all at once Clifford's words came back ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... cocked to one side, like an intelligent sparrow's; Lady Pinkerton, tall and fair and powdered, in a lilac silk dress, her large white hands all over rings, amethysts swinging from her ears; Clare (who had given up nursing owing to the strain, and was having a rest), slim and rather graceful, a little flushed from the heat, lying in a deck chair and swinging a buckled shoe, saying something ordinary and Clare-ish; Hobart sitting by her, a pale, Gibson young man, with his smooth fair hair brushed back, and lavender socks with purple ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay

... adjustable hangers are placed every 8 feet apart. There are in use too many kinds of hangers to explain or describe them here. The essential point of all good hangers is to have them strong, neat, and so made that perfect alignment of the pipe can be had. The hangers should be so placed that no strain will come on the fitting or the valves. A hanger should be placed near each side of unions so that when the union is taken apart neither side of the pipe will drop and bend. Hooks and straps should be used to hold vertical pipes rigid and in position. A vertical ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble

... unearthly, unnatural semblance. I learned that he could never quite shake off the feeling that the houses were anchored into the earth, suspended only by the embedment of their foundations in the soil; that trees were suspended from their roots, which groaned with the strain; that soil was held to the bedrock only by its cohesion. He even dreaded lest, during storms, the grip of the muddy soil be loosened, and the fields fall into the blue! It was only when clasped tight in Alice's arms that the ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby

... said Steering. He had known all these seconds that he was doing this for her, but the strain that he was on had somehow pulled him beyond the comprehension of her as actual; for the last ten seconds she had been rather a big abstraction, a high principle of his soul, a good desire in his heart. To see her there before ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... Sergius turned in his saddle scanning the road behind, feeling the presence of pursuers whom he could not see. The good horses were weakening fast. No flesh and blood could stand that strain, and naught but the spirit of the breed kept them afoot. Marcia's was limping painfully; the one Sergius rode was wavering in its stride, like the Carthaginian captain when he came out of the guard-house by ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... of the simple cold-water treatment and fasting all fevers and inflammations can be reduced in a perfectly natural way within a short time without undue strain ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr

... her eyes, and swayed her head as if accompanying a strain of music. 'I love you,' he went on. 'I know nothing about you. I know not who you are, nor whence you came. You are neither my mother nor my sister; and yet I love you to a point that I have given you my whole heart and kept ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... that demon with the bell, besets him at every turn, almost teasing the sap out of him! The moment that his tormentor quits the scene, PUNCH seems to forget the existence of his annoyance, and, carolling the mellifluous numbers of Jim Crow, or some other strain of equal beauty, makes the most of the present, regardless of the past or future; and when SHALLA-BA-LA renews his persecutions, PUNCH boldly faces his enemy, and ultimately becomes the victor. All have a SHALLA-BA-LA in some shape or other; ...
— Punch, Volume 101, Jubilee Issue, July 18, 1891 • Various

... a man of no judgment and of as little virtue, and as to religion rather impious: after he had for some years entertained the nation with several virulent books writ with much life, he was attacked by the liveliest droll of the age, who writ in a burlesque strain but with so peculiar and entertaining a conduct that from the King down to the tradesman his books were read with great pleasure, that not only humbled Parker but the whole party, for the author of the Rehearsal Transprosed ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... me. Merely to keep him silent I burst out in a flux of reproaches as torrent-like as his own could be; and all the time I was wondering whether it was true that a man who talked as he did, in his strain of florid flimsy, had actually ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... or so I love to believe, grounding myself upon the learned Dr. Beddoes—a swarthy people, dark-haired, grey-eyed, rather under than over the mean height. The aboriginal strain has proved itself stronger than the Frisian, and the Danish type does not appear at all. There are English names among us, of course, such as Gurd, which is Gurth as pronounced by a Norman; but it is understood that we are neolithic chiefly on the distaff side. The theory that each successive ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett

... his old-time steamboat song when Lambert went down to the bunkhouse an hour before sunset. There was an aroma of coffee mingling with the strain: ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... rope under and around the bow thwart, as Manikawan directed, knotting it securely, leaving sufficient length to extend back to the centre thwart, around which he again wrapped it and finally tied the end. This he did in order that the strain upon the canoe might ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace

... stop! I am too tired for all this just now. Say what you will to-morrow. You know the thing is a great strain. Tell me only this: Are you quite sure that his Majesty will come? Do you believe it possible that at last everything is to be right—that we are to have Moscow—our old ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... light-hearted and the loose-tongued had already their foot on the threshold; they liked to sit a while in his unobtrusive company, practising for solitude, sobering their minds in the man's rich silence after the expense and strain of gaiety. To this rule, Dr. Jekyll was no exception; and as he now sat on the opposite side of the fire—a large, well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty, with something of a slyish cast perhaps, but every mark of capacity and kindness—you could see by his looks that he ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

... an electric field is in a state of tension or strain; and this strain increases along the lines of force with the electromotive force producing it until a limit is reached, when a rent or split occurs in the air along the line of least resistance—which is disruptive ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various

... acute mental distress would this person ever behold his immaculate progenitor taking part in a similar sit-round game with an assembly of worthy mandarins, the one asking questions of meaningless import, as "Why did they Hangkow?" and another replying in an equal strain of no consecutiveness, "In order ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah

... cat's-paw now and then would come stealing along the glassy surface between us and them, but so far they had managed to keep ahead of the breeze. The measured roll of the oars in their rowlocks could now be distinctly heard and the sound reaching the ears of the Spaniards made them strain and tug at the sweeps more desperately than ever, Courtenay not only cheering them on but now actually tailing on to a sweep which the lad Francisco was manfully tugging away at with the best of them. The perspiration was pouring off the ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... last to the bottom of a narrow valley, and the strain of driving under such dangerous circumstances had been so great that John felt compelled to take a rest of a half-hour. Julie descended from the machine and walked back and forth in the road. They saw that they were in a narrow ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... carry the weight of the superstructure, and the first signs of weakness begin to show themselves in the oldest and lowest portion of the whole. Carefully repaired, when the weakness is noticed at all, it can bear a little more, and again a little, but at last the breaking strain is reached, the tall building totters, the highest pinnacles topple over, then the upper story collapses, and the end comes either in the crash of a great falling or, by degrees, in the irreparable ruin of ages. But when all is over, and wind and weather and time have swept ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... worked on at his farm harder than ever, and grew soberer and more careworn daily. Rufus had never seemed so near and dear to him as in these weeks when he had lived under the shadow of threatened blindness. The burning of the barn and the strain upon their slender property brought the brothers together ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... thing he would do," said Bennett, whose hand was still unsteady from the strain of an hour ago, "to bunk when Brother Boche is giving us a little crumping to keep ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett

... whole kingdom a gentle music filled the warm air and charmed the ear—the music of fairy voices, the music of whispering flames, the music of tripping feet—all the sweet sounds of the fire gathered into one continuous strain of gladness, now high and clear, as if it could not be restrained, now low and soft, as if even in quietness all must still murmur the praise of the ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield

... the royal dance; the music burst into a bolder strain, and lord and lady rose, treading the strange measure down the hall, after the King and his fair Queen. Louder, and yet more loud the music pealed; and, though it was midnight, the multitude without ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... some grand old fane To hear the Vesper prayer Rise, with the organ's solemn strain, On incense-laden air; While the last dying smiles of day Athwart the stained glass pour— Flooding with red and golden ray The ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

... certain of the roads. However, I knew a trick or two about this business, and I was sure some of the pursuers would forge ahead; so three times I got behind a turn and fired as a man came on alone. I dismounted several that way. This relieved the strain enough so that I got within sight of the river with all my men. It was a quarter of a mile away when I saw it, and at that point the road split, and which branch led to the ford for the life of me I didn't know. ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... so closely to the Law as Paul's, without being pronounced by all men a minion of the devil, had not the apostle made that estimation of it himself? And who is to have any more respect for the righteousness of the Law if we are to preach in that strain? ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther

... here for a year, but I couldn't endure the strain; I'm not very strong, and the boys were so rude. If I could teach in a seminary—teach Latin and English—I should be happy, I think. But I can't leave ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... stewpan. When done put them into pots and pour over the top clarified butter. If wanted for immediate use they will keep good a few days without being covered over. To rewarm them put the mushrooms into a stewpan, strain the butter from them, and they ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer

... view of the exquisite hindquarters; the first exposure to his gaze of the second actor in the scene of pleasure; the making him caress and play with it; the complete exposure of all their naked charms as their shirts are drawn over their heads; the close embrace as they strain each other in their arms; the turning him round to present the altar for the sacrifice; the entrance; the combat; the extasy; the offering the recompensing pleasure; the introducing the virgin weapon for the first time; the ardour of the first enjoyment; the first tribute and the mutual embrace ...
— Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover • Anonymous

... their heads And swaying bodies lay the silver light Of the bright moon. The great night seemed to pause Chin upon hand to watch the struggle, air Hushed to retain the hoarse and laboring sobs Such strain brought forth. Their shining bodies, oiled In honor of the feast, granted no hold To the fierce ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay

... thoroughly amalgamated—as distinguished from the case of King James's Planters in Ulster, who, to this day are, as a rule, as distinct from the population amongst whom they live—whether of pure Celtic strain or with a Norman admixture—as ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir

... had fallen as low as 10; while in 1862 it did not exceed 4.[156] This decrease (which is confined, be it observed, to the cartoons which he contributed to Punch) was due to failing health consequent on the strain of incessant production. Of the coming evil he himself was distinctly cognizant. It is said of him that Lord Ossington, then Speaker, once met him on the rail, and expressed to him his hope that he enjoyed in his work some of ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt



Words linked to "Strain" :   taxonomic category, mental strain, elbow grease, theme, stretch, variant, theme song, strain gage, tune, overexert oneself, relax, tenor, cookery, phrase, employ, melodic phrase, roulade, unstrain, labour, rub, nervous strain, melody, pedigree, straining, labor, rack, tension, drift, injury, trouble oneself, purport, shape, fan, harm, trauma, difficulty, trouble, sift, extend oneself, physics, afflict, cradlesong, tenseness, filtrate, preparation, natural philosophy, resift, meaning, line, deformation, nervousness, attempt, filter out, kill oneself, try, apply, lullaby, hurt, jihad, voice, screen, drive, song, strenuous, substance, part, biology, jaundice, separate, form, utilize, leitmotiv, glissando, pains, tense, taxon, sweat, nerves, endeavor, leitmotif, puree, effort, var., melodic line, idea, biological science, music, carol, tug, psychology, musical theme, vocal music, affect, exertion, cotton strain, melodic theme, psychological science, rice, filter, strain gauge, distort, tax, signature tune, deform, striving, fanfare, jehad, sieve, riddle, stock, tighten



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com