Word.ws English Dictionary

strain courtesy

strain courtesy verb: to go beyond what courtesy requires; to insist somewhat too much upon the precedence of others.

Verb

strain courtesy (third-person singular simple present strains courtesy, present participle straining courtesy, simple past and past participle strained courtesy)

  1. To go beyond what courtesy requires; to insist somewhat too much upon the precedence of others.
    • my business was great ; and in such a case as mine , a man may strain courtesyc. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...

Forms of strain courtesy

third-person singular presentstrains courtesy
present participlestraining courtesy
past participlestrained courtesy
paststrained courtesy

Questions about strain courtesy

What does strain courtesy mean?
Strain courtesy means to go beyond what courtesy requires; to insist somewhat too much upon the precedence of others.
What part of speech is strain courtesy?
Strain courtesy is a verb.
What is the past tense of strain courtesy?
The past tense of strain courtesy is strained courtesy.

Words near strain courtesy in the dictionary

  1. strain a point
  2. strain at a gnat
  3. strain at the leash
  4. strain burst
  5. strain bursts
  6. strain courtesy
  7. strain energies
  8. strain energy
  9. strain every nerve
  10. strain gauge
  11. strain gauges

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: strain courtesy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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