strain
/stɹeɪn/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.15 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A particular variety of a microbe, virus, or other organism, usually a taxonomically infraspecific one.
noun
noun
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.
noun
Language that is eloquent, poetic, or otherwise heightened.
Example Sentences
- "He is of a noble strain."
- "[…] with animals and plants a cross between different varieties, or between individuals of the same variety but of another strain, gives vigour and fertility to the offspring; […]"
- "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."
- "There is a strain of madness in her family."
- "Intemperance and Luſt breed infirmities and diſeaſes, which, being propagated, ſpoil the Strain of a Nation."
Etymology
From Middle English streen, strene, streon, istreon (“race, stock, generation”), from Old English strēon, ġestrēon (“gain, wealth”), from Proto-West Germanic *streun, from Proto-Germanic *streuną (“heap, treasure, profit, gain”), from Proto-Indo-European *strew- (“to spread, strew”) (cognate with Old Saxon gistriuni, Old High German gistriuni (“gain, property, wealth, business”), Latin strues (“heap”)). Confused in Middle English with the related noun strend, strynd, strund, from Old English strȳnd (“race; stock”), from strēonan, strȳnan (“to beget; acquire”). Related also to Dutch struinen (“to prowl, root about, rout”).