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Race; stock; generation; descent; family. He is of a noble strain. Shak. With animals and plants a cross between different varieties, or between individuals of the same variety but of another strain, gives vigor and fertility to the offspring. Darwin.

Capable of being strained.

Violently. Holinshed.

Subjected to great or excessive tension; wrenched; weakened; as, strained relations between old friends.

One who strains.

from Strain. Straining piece (Arch.), a short piece of timber in a truss, used to maintain the ends of struts or rafters, and keep them from slipping. See Illust. of Queen-post.

Overexertion; excessive tension; strain. [Obs.] Spenser.

by bonds; to chain; to bond or con He binds in hains The droway prophet, and his limbs constrains. Dryden. When winter frosts constrain the fields with old. Dryden.

Capable of being constrained; liable to constraint, or to restraint. Hooker.

Marked by constraint; not free; not voluntary; embarrassed; as, a constrained manner; a constrained tone.

By constraint or compulsion; in a constrained manner. Hooker.

One who constrains.

The act of constraining, or the state of being constrained; that which compels to, or restrains from, action; compulsion; restraint; necessity. Long imprisonment and hard constraint. Spenser. Not by constraint, but bDryden.

Constraining; compulsory. [R.] "Any constraintive vow." R. Carew.

To press heavily upon; to bear down upon with violence; hence, to constrain or compel; to bind; to distress, torment, or afflict. [Obs.] "Distrained with chains." Chaucer.

Capable of being, or liable to be, distrained. Blackstone.

Same as Distrainor.

One who distrains; the party distraining goods or chattels. Blackstone.

The act or proceeding of seizing personal property by distress. Abbott.

Half-bred; imperfect. [R.] "A half-strained villain." Dryden.