Straining

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

I'm not straining your tea.

The creaking of the masts; the straining and groaning of bulkheads, as the ship labored in the weltering sea, were frightful.

All the dogs were straining at their leashes.

Yanni was straining to get a glimpse of Skura.

Ziri was straining in the toilet.

Beyond the rail there was winter night, a moving blackness where the waves rushed and clamored; straining into the great dark, men sensed only the bitter salt of sea-scud, the nettle of sleet and the lash of wind.

Ziri started straining the boiled medlars.

You're straining him way too hard and way too thin, can't you see ?

The president is straining every nerve to make his country great again.