[-ING2.] That strains, in various senses of the vb.
1530. Palsgr., 326/1. Straynyng, constraintif.
1534. More, Comf. agst. Trib., III. xxvii. (1553), V vij b. Ye crewel stretching and straining payne, farre passing any crampe.
1584. B. R., trans. Herodotus, I. 26 b. Fetching from the bottom of his hart a deepe and streyning sigh.
1794. Mrs. Radcliffe, Myst. Udolpho, xxxiv. The straining cordage bursts, the mast is riven.
1838. W. C. Harris, Narr. Exped. S. Africa, xxx. 289. But neither fount, nor pool, nor running stream, greeted my straining gaze.
1888. F. Hume, Mme. Midas, Prol. Holding the straining sail by a stout rope twisted round his arm.
1898. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., V. 281. Much harm may be done by straining efforts in defœcation.
† b. Astringent, styptic. Obs.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. liii. (1495), 634. Iuy is medicinable thouh it be bytter and is streynynge.
1552. Huloet, Streygninge or bitinge as ginger … [etc.], stipticus.
Hence Strainingly adv.
1828. Blackw. Mag., XXIII. 773. Stood he strainingly upright.
1831. Trelawny, Adv. Younger Son, cxxiii. The tense cords strainingly drawn from heart to brain.
1883. Miss Broughton, Belinda, I. xiii. Belinda has opened the envelope, and is staring strainingly at the paper.
