Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A violent stretching or tension; a strain; pressure; constraint.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete Overexertion; excessive tension; strain.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete overexertion; excessive tension; strain

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French estrainte, estreinte, French étrainte. See strain.

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Examples

  • And then, seeing that I smiled and shook my head, she suddenly threw aside her con - straint and made a step forward, with her hands wrung together.

    Sole Music 2010

  • When she refused, four officers entered the cell and tied her down in a device called a “pro-straint” chair.

    Alas, a blog » 2006 » May 2006

  • When she refused, four officers entered the cell and tied her down in a device called a “pro-straint” chair.

    Alleged Police Abuse Caught On Tape 2006

  • She had nothing on beneath it, other than the orange socks; her body was lithe and well formed, and seemed designed to be free of con - straint.

    Robot Adept Anthony, Piers 1988

  • The Citizen was indulging in self - hypnosis, or a yoga exercise, putting himself into a mental state that would allow him to draw without normal re - straint on the full resources of his body.

    Blue Adept Anthony, Piers 1981

  • Even apart from this rein - forcement, the Evangelical emphasis upon sexual re - straint and temperance would have had the effect of idealizing chaste love, woman, and the home, and of surrounding these objects with sentiments of attach - ment, reverence, and even worship.

    Dictionary of the History of Ideas WILLIAM A. MADDEN 1968

  • For some thinkers of the eighteenth century like Mandeville, Helvétius, and de Sade, it means the negative freedom from con - straint and the right to self-realization.

    ENLIGHTENMENT HELLMUT O. PAPPE 1968

  • Page 114, Volume 4 straint, he ended up as its theoretician, owing to the successes that penal sanctions had against the Donatists.

    RELIGIOUS TOLERATION ELISABETH LABROUSSE 1968

  • They only showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked re - straint in the gratification of his various lusts, that there was something wanting in him -- some small matter which, when the pressing need arose, could not be found under his magnificent eloquence.

    Heart of Darkness 1960

  • And then, seeing that I smiled and shook my head, she suddenly threw aside her con - straint and made a step forward, with her hands wrung together.

    The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1950

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