straint
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Old French estrainte, estreinte, French étrainte. See strain.
Noun
[edit]straint
- (obsolete) overexertion; excessive tension; strain
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “(please specify the book)”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- That with the straint o his weasand nigh he brast
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “straint”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)