How to use strain in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Strain means race; lineage, pedigree. Example: “They say this year's flu virus is a particularly virulent strain.”

Examples of strain by meaning

nounA particular variety of a microbe, virus, or other organism, usually a taxonomically infraspecific one.

They say this year's flu virus is a particularly virulent strain.
European scientists have discovered a new strain of the virus that causes AIDS and linked it to gorillas, creating a mystery about when and how the first patient found to have the strain became infected.2009 August 4, Lawrence K. Altman, “New Strain of H.I.V. Is Discovered”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

nounHereditary character, quality, tendency, or disposition.

There is a strain of madness in her family.

nounAny sustained note or movement; a song; a distinct portion of an ode or other poem; also, the pervading note, or...

A baby gurgled, a photographer dropped her lens cap, and the strains of the U.S.2024, Christa Case Bryant, As US marks 9/11, a divided Congress unites to honor 13 fallen in Afghanistan, in: The Christian Science...

verbTo apply a force or forces to by stretching out.

to strain a rope; to strain the shrouds of a ship

verbTo damage by drawing, stretching, or the exertion of force.

The gale strained the timbers of the ship.

verbTo exert or struggle (to do something), especially to stretch (one's senses, faculties etc.) beyond what is normal or...

Sitting in back, I strained to hear the speaker.

verbTo stretch beyond its proper limit; to do violence to, in terms of intent or meaning.

to strain the law in order to convict an accused person

verbTo separate solid from liquid by passing through a strainer or colander.

Strain the noodles and rinse with fresh water until it runs clear.2017 November 14, Matthew Kenney, PLANTLAB, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN
Except for the indigo, the dyebaths are steeped over heat to release their pigment and then strained to remove the dyestuff.2026, Elise Young, “Yagaa: Reviving Sericulture in Southern Mexico”, in Spin Off, volume L, number 1, page 17

More sentences with strain

A link opened under the strain, and the chain came apart.From the entry open
You must allow that disagreeing about politics puts a strain on a relationship.From the entry allow
Last year's flu strain was so contagious that everybody in town got sick!From the entry contagious
I gave up my job as a typist owing to repetitive strain injury.From the entry owing to
This seems to be a recrudescent strain of the plague rather than a wholly new disease.From the entry recrudescent
A dualtropic HIV strain uses both the CCR5 and the CXCR4 coreceptors.From the entry dualtropic
Public health officials derided the X-MPLE strain as a "scariant" last night.From the entry scariant
Strain the stock and return it to the pan.From the entry return
His arched back ached from the constant strain.From the entry arched
Most strains of this virus have no virulence.From the entry virulence
This strain has higher virulence than most others.From the entry virulence
I caught that new strain of flu and for three days I was as sick as a dog.From the entry sick as a dog
The flutter effect strains my eyes.From the entry flutter
The mutant strain exhibited reduced osmosensitivity.From the entry osmosensitivity
Don't strain rice in colander, haiyaa!From the entry haiya
A strain is a dimensionless quantity and is usually expressed in percentages.2025 September 26, Grant Maloy Smith, “What Is a Strain Gauge Sensor and How Does It Work?”, in DEWESoft, archived from the original on 14…. From the entry dimensionless
One microstrain is the strain producing deformation of one part per million.2025 September 26, Grant Maloy Smith, “What Is a Strain Gauge Sensor and How Does It Work?”, in DEWESoft, archived from the original on 14…. From the entry dimensionless
He adds the tea leaves to the boiling milk, then strains the liquid into cups.2023, Santanu Bhattacharya, One Small Voice, Fig Tree, page 350. From the entry chai
Robots excel at exactly the repetitive tasks that stultify the human mind and strain the human body.2023 December 16, “Robots Free Humans from Repetitive Tasks”, in American Institute of Economic Research. From the entry stultify
The Beta variant was selected because it was the prevalent SARS-CoV-2 strain at the time.2022 August 17, Prabhu S. Arunachalam et al., “Durable protection against the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant is induced by an adjuvanted…. From the entry Beta variant
Twenty-five one-armed squeezers sounds like a lot of unnecessary strain on the heart.2019, Letterkenny (TV series). From the entry squeezer
A case currently before our courts strains our credulity, even in the Alice-in-Wonderland of Northern Ireland.2019 June 10, “Editor's Viewpoint: Killer McConville's legal action is a sickening irony”, in Belfast Telegraph. From the entry Alice-in-Wonderland
The largest strains during biting are present in the midface and of course at the biting point.2018, Enrico Marani, Ciska Heida, Head and Neck: Morphology, Models and Function, page 200. From the entry biting point
We'd strain to touch those lang'rous Length of thighs; And hear your short sharp modern Babylonic cries.2016, Djuna Barnes, Katharine Maller, Vivid and Repulsive as the Truth: The Early Works of Djuna Barnes, page 238. From the entry Babylonic
Additionally, the existence of hypertolerant strains makes them an automatic choice in the environmental cleaning process.2016, “Chapter 15: Role of Aspergillus in bioremediation process”, in Vijai Kumar Gupta, editor, New and Future Developments in Microbial…. From the entry bioremediation
It's the first time this colistin-resistant strain has been found in a person in the United States.2016, "The superbug that doctors have been dreading just reached the U.S.", The Washington Post, Lena H. Sun and Brady Dennis, May 26. From the entry colistin
Some strains are non-typeable, and others can be rough or autoagglutinating, making these cultures un-typeable.2016 January 30, “Comparison of O-Antigen Gene Clusters of All O-Serogroups of Escherichia coli and Proposal for Adopting a New…. From the entry autoagglutinating
This strain never turned red, indicating that β carotene was not hyperproduced by this strain.2015 June 3, Ahmad Farhad Talebi et al., “Biochemical Modulation of Lipid Pathway in Microalgae Dunaliella sp. for Biodiesel Production”…. From the entry hyperproduce
The vertical axis lists strains containing CRISPR spacers that target a bifibacterial prophage sequence.2015 August 1, “Occurrence and Diversity of CRISPR-Cas Systems in the Genus Bifidobacterium”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI. From the entry bifibacterial
This slumped sitting posture may cause strain, instability, or injury in the lumbopelvic region.2015 August 21, Won-gyu Yoo, “Comparison of the T10 and L4 paraspinal muscle activities over time during continuous computer work”, in…. From the entry lumbopelvic

Meaning of strain

noun Race; lineage, pedigree.
noun A particular variety of a microbe, virus, or other organism, usually a taxonomically infraspecific one.
noun Hereditary character, quality, tendency, or disposition.

Full definition of strain

Questions about strain in a sentence

How do you use strain in a sentence?: Strain is used as a noun and verb. For example: “They say this year's flu virus is a particularly virulent strain.”
What is a short sentence with strain?: “Don't strain rice in colander, haiyaa!”
What does strain mean?: Strain means race; lineage, pedigree.

Adapted from Wiktionary: strain (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use strain in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/strain. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.