strains

Noun

strain (plural strains)

1. (archaic) Race; lineage, pedigree.
   • He is of a noble strain.1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
2. A 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.
3. (figuratively) Hereditary character, quality, tendency, or disposition.
   • There is a strain of madness in her family.

   Synonyms:

   propensity, proneness

4. 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, etc.
   • Yet Keats, though for so many years he has given nothing to the world, is understood to have devoted himself to the composition of an epic poem. Some passages of it have been communicated to the inner circle of his admirers, and impressed them as the loftiest strains that have been audible on earth...1846, Nathaniel Hawthorne, “P.'s Correspondence”, in Mosses from an Old Manse

   Synonyms:

   theme, motive, manner, style

5. Language that is eloquent, poetic, or otherwise heightened.
6. (rare) A kind or sort (of person etc.).
   • the common strain1693, Decimus Junius Juvenalis, John Dryden, transl., “[The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis.] The Fifth Satyr”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […]...

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