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Overstrain   Listen
verb
Overstrain  v. t.  To stretch or strain too much; as, to overstrain one's nerves.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Overstrain" Quotes from Famous Books



... of danger is that the recourse to coca and kola is an attempt to get more out of the body, and the mind, than nature intended. Overwork, overstrain, worry, all produce exhaustion of physical and nervous power. Nature pulls us up by asserting herself, and we feel run down and seedy, and, perhaps, quite unwell. What is wanted is rest, proper diet, and change. These would quickly be restorative, and ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... alone, tired out, hungry, thirsty, and cold, with every muscle of his body crying its protest of aches against the overstrain of a long day's work; surround him with every attribute of physical discomfort; with the future stretching away in a dull gray vista of uncertainty, and the memory strong upon him that the girl—the one girl in all the world—has ceased ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... now begins to oppress him;—it is a sense of vital exhaustion painful as the misery of convalescence: the least effort provokes a perspiration profuse enough to saturate clothing, and the limbs ache as from muscular overstrain;—the lightest attire feels almost insupportable;—the idea of sleeping even under a sheet is torture, for the weight of a silken handkerchief is discomfort. One wishes one could live as a savage,—naked in the heat. One burns with a thirst impossible ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... to the one child he had brought with him as an infant from the Highland hills, and to whom he gave a brilliant but desultory and uncommon education. Life seemed to swirl round him in a glittering ring of gold of which he made himself the centre,—and when he died suddenly "from overstrain" as the doctors said, people were almost frightened to name the vast fortune his daughter inherited, accustomed as they were to the counting of many millions. ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli

... in the upper hall, at the door of the vacant guest-room, the candle in her hand, Gladys had a sudden keen intimation that she was herself but human, endowed with muscles susceptible of overstrain, with nerves of sensitive fibre, with instincts importunate with the cry of self-interest, with impulses toward collapse, tears, terrors, anxieties—all in revolt against the sedulous constraint of will. The light of the candle ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock

... once more I dreamed of finality in change I deceived myself, forgetting that God Himself cannot unmake the past or undo what is done. A year had hardly gone by in this new apprenticeship to life, when at moments of weariness or overstrain sharp doubts shot through me and were gone again, like twinges of sudden pain recalling old disease to one who has lulled himself with dreams of cure. The feeling of fellowship with men grew weaker, and as it waned I began to shrink once more from my kind. I still believed myself ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... in the afternoon Judge Gray was usually too weary to proceed farther; sometimes by the luncheon hour he was ready to lay aside his papers and dismiss his assistant. On other days he would waken with a severe headache, the result of the overstrain he was constantly tempted to give his eyes, in spite of all the aid that was offered him. On such days Richard could not always find enough to do to occupy his time, and would be obliged to leave the house so early that many hours were on his hands. When this happened, he would take the opportunity ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond

... sympathy for the part played by England in the War and his criticism of what he considered our backwardness, he became naturalized as a British citizen. In 1916, received the Order of Merit (O.M.), the highest honor for literary men conferred in England. His death in 1916 was attributed to overstrain caused by the War and his efforts to ...
— Contemporary American Literature - Bibliographies and Study Outlines • John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert

... Gwen unsuspicious that powers of exorcism had been imputed to her. The ascription of them might be—certainly was—nothing but an outcome of the overstrain and tension of the last few days, but the repetition of it in cold blood to its subject might have been taken to mean that it was a symptom of insanity. Gwen did not press her to tell more, as Dr. Nash made his appearance. The frequency ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... used any horse-flesh they owned as they used themselves. They reared a large family and worked their sons and daughters as mercilessly as they worked themselves; all of them but Lars. Lars was the fourth son, and he was born lazy. He seemed to bear the mark of overstrain on the part of his parents. Even in his cradle he was an example of physical inertia; anything to lie still. When he was a growing boy his mother had to drag him out of bed every morning, and he had to be driven to his chores. At school he had a model ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... hysteria," she said at last. "It is a form of hysteria now, but it did not begin with that. It was overstrain, nervous breakdown, a collapse of the system. See my hand when I hold it up, how it shakes? I can't control that, and my heart beats wildly at the slightest exertion. I am exhausted, limp, Victor, ironed out by the events of last year, very much like what your collar ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross

... actually outwrought them both. At length, however, the enemy drifted to leeward to refit; and when set to repair the gashed and severed rigging, such was his state of exhaustion, in consequence of the previous overstrain on every nerve and muscle, that he had scarce vigour enough left to raise the marlingspike employed in the work to the level of his face. Suddenly, when in this condition, a signal passed along the line, that the Dutch fleet, already refitted, was bearing down to renew the engagement. ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... indefatigable, the most docile, the most ambitious in the world. But they are also qualities which urge him to efforts in excess of his natural powers, with the frequent result of mental and moral enervation. The nation has entered upon a period of intellectual overstrain. Consciously or unconsciously, in obedience to sudden necessity, Japan has undertaken nothing less than the tremendous task of forcing mental expansion up to the highest existing standard; and this means ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... "they will overstrain themselves with the hare in sight, and break a blood-vessel." See Arrian, xxxi. 4, ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon

... in pleasure, at the same time yielding an equally undisguised inspection of their own. This was their principle reason, but they also considered it advisable as a restorative, and a useful precaution not to overstrain the energies of the youths they both so much enjoyed. My late experiences at home had already taught me the advantage and utility of a quiet night's rest after frequent contests in the ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... of various kinds of food, according as each tends to make bone, fat, or muscle, provided only—provided only—that the food be unadulterated; the value of various kinds of clothing, and physical exercise, of a free and equal development of the brain-power, without undue overstrain in any one direction; in one word, the method of producing, as far as possible, the mentem sanam in corpore sano, and the wonderful and blessed effects of such obedience to those laws of nature, which are nothing but the good ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... rest came with the quiet of those hours alone in the hotel. Basil was gone until the evening, and Diana had time to recover a little from the fatigue of the journey, and in the perfect solitude also from the overstrain of the nerves. She began to remember Basil's part in all this, and to be sensible how true and faithful and kind he was; how very unselfish, how patient with her and with pain. Diana could have wept her heart out over it, if that would have done any good; and indeed supposing that ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... the high thinking and rather plain spiritual living of Woodrow Wilson. It desired the man in the White House to cause it no more moral overstrain than does the man you meet in the Pullman smoking compartment or the man who writes the captions for the movies who employs a sort of Inaugural style, freed from the inhibitions of statesmanship. It was in a mood similar ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous

... child with a puny body and an excitable brain,—the neurotic. The young eye, for example, is too flat (hypermetropic)—made to focus only on objects at a distance. Close application to print, or even to weaving mats or folding bits of paper accurately, causes an overstrain on the eye, which not only results in the chronic condition known as myopia,—short-sightedness,—so common to school children, but which acts unfavorably on the constitution and on the whole development of the child. At the recent International Congress ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... in their respective natures; Kelly would have warned him bluntly not to endanger his prospects by being a fool; a mental specialist would have explained that the shock of John Locke's death, coming on top of the ten years of almost continual overstrain in bad climates, had temporarily affected his balance, an opinion with which Lalage herself would have agreed, knowing, after all, nothing of men's love; but neither opinions nor diagnosis would have ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt

... with your back I've to do, or yourself either. But all can see that the miser's cake'll be eaten, ay, even by crow and raven if need be. Keep your strength for your young wife—you might overstrain yourself on an old witch like me. And ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... determined on persuading him to patience, reinforcing her assurances with Dr. Dagger's opinion, that though Kalliope's constitution needed only quiet and rest entirely to shake off the effects of the overstrain of that terrible half-year, yet that renewed agitation would probably entail chronic heart-complaint; and she insisted that without making any sign the lover should go out of reach for several months, making, for instance, the expedition to Norway ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... rush and hurry and overstrain of life more marked than in this much-achieving Nation. The comparative youth and freshness and vigor of the American people enable them to do and to endure what would be beyond the power of an older and more worn-out community. Yet there is no disguising the fact ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... pepper-brandy; I pulled myself together and rubbed my eyes and then I seemed to be going to the governor's for an explanation. Nothing of the kind ever happened to me, before or after, and I can only explain these strange dreams like memories, by ascribing them to overstrain of the nerves. I lived again through the scene in the slaughter-house and the conversation with the governor, and at the same time I was ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... to be quite on my legs again in a few days. My present indisposition is nothing but an overstrain and knock-up, which a couple of days' rest and some homoeopathic powder will easily set right. Probably we shall see one another in the early days of next week at Leipzig; but don't let us speak of it before-hand, as I have already been three times prevented from making ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... insolent, you know, At being disappointed in your wish To supersede all warblers here below, And be the only Blackbird in the dish; And then you overstrain yourself, or so, And tumble downward like the flying fish Gasping on deck, because you soar too high, Bob, And fall, for lack of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... sometimes. Under great strain, or the demand of special circumstances, he runs, but finds that exhaustion follows; or if he runs too frequently, total collapse is the inevitable consequence. Two of the most eminent ministers of our times recently died owing to overstrain and over-exertion. But we have some now living who have done signal service for the Church during a ministry of fifty years, and who are still hale and having a green old age. To walk at a steady pace, fulfilling life's responsibilities and the demands of duty, is to fulfil ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.

... which take the 'light' and 'sun' as symbols of the whole happiness of conscious existence, it is clear that the darkening of this light is the gradual failing of the joy of living.—And the clouds return after the rain: an exquisite symbol, closely akin to the last. In youth we may overstrain and disturb our health, but we soon rally; these are storms that quickly clear up. In age the rallying power is gone: "the clouds return after the rain."—The keepers of the house shall tremble: Cheyne understands ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various

... now, then, let's look matters plainly in the face, as doctor and patient if you like. You're off the line, Mal. There's no denying it. Overstrain. Well, it's bad. ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn

... fix and concentrate his energies upon the task of compelling into symmetry the heap of materials lying under his hand. The De Subtilitate and the De Varietate are standing proofs that Cardan did not overstrain his powers by ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... far as to make neutrality in party a crime against the state. I do not know whether this might not have been rather to overstrain the principle. Certain it is, the best patriots in the greatest commonwealths have always commended and promoted such connections. Idem sentire de republica, was with them a principal ground of friendship and attachment; nor ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... exercise, because it is the kind of exercise that occupies the whole child, his mental as well as his physical side—and later, also, the moral side. In play the exercise is regulated by the interests, so that, while there may be extreme exertion, there is not the same danger of overstrain as is possible with work that he is forced to do. In play the exercise is carried on with freedom of the spirit, so that the flow of blood and the feeling of ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg

... it would, I am persuaded, have been intolerable to any man to supply, except for one for whom each and every day as it arose was a new and an entire sacrifice to duty. As in the year 1838, when the manuscript was ready, I had to go abroad on account mainly of some overstrain upon the eyes, he undertook the whole labour of carrying the work through the press; and he even commended me, as you will see from the letters, because I did not show an ungovernable impatience of his aid. [Footnote: J. R. Hope to Mr. Gladstone, August 29, 1838, ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby

... mental and physical exhaustion. Reaction from fear brings a fatigue more profound than that which follows physical overstrain. But the healthy mind, like the healthy body, disposes very thoroughly of toxics which ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers

... It goes without saying that girls have the natural talent for learning everything that boys can learn. The objections raised by the opponents of co-education seem to rest chiefly upon the danger of the intellectual or physical overstrain of girls during adolescence, and upon the unequal rate of development of boys and girls during the secondary school period. It is further alleged that in mixed schools the curriculum is so prescribed that the girls' course of study ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang

... suspicion occurred only to be dismissed. A fortnight before you had left me on your way south to Badajoz, and you will own that to connect you with something which apparently had happened yesterday in a barber's shop in Sabugal was to overstrain guessing. Having nothing to say, I held my tongue; and General Ducrot put on a more magisterial air. He resented this British phlegm in a prisoner with whom he had been graciously jocose and fell back on his national belief that we islanders, though occasionally funny, are so by force of eccentricity ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... out," and in the half-despair of his expression to Froude about the Deity Himself, "He does nothing." Professor Masson says that "Carlyle had abandoned the Metaphysic of Christianity while retaining much of its Ethic." To reverse this dictum would be an overstrain on the other side: but the Metaphysic of Calvinism is precisely what he retained; the alleged Facts of Revelation he discarded; of the Ethic of the Gospels he accepted perhaps the lesser half, and he distinctly ceased to regard the teaching of Christ ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... even this unsatisfied yearning must have come to us across the ages which separate the primeval mist from the consciousness of to-day. I do not think that any holder of the Evolution hypothesis would say that I overstate or overstrain it in any way. I merely strip it of all vagueness, and bring before you, unclothed and unvarnished, the notions by which it ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... this complex human machine is capable of doing; nor indeed do we know how to adjust the action of the different parts, and to manage the repairs so as to get the best possible work out of it. Some overstrain it, others take needless trouble about the repairs. As yet the capacities of human muscle and nerve have never been adequately tested. We are carrying the experiments in this matter farther than they have ever gone before. We cannot know the ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... awakened by a tapping on the window. Assuring himself that the wallet under his pillow was still there, he investigated the cause of the disturbance of his slumbers. The noise had ceased and he decided that the overstrain of the day had worked an hallucination. Pomeroy dropped off to sleep, but presently was aroused by sounds which were unmistakably caused by a gentle tapping on the window pane. Exasperated, the man arose, picked up a boot, slipped to the window and raised ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various

... hours of standing in a cramped position, the confined space, the exactitude required for minute and painful operations, are some of the causes of this overstrain. Great self-control and will power must be exercised as the patients, especially children, are frequently nervous, and confidence must be imparted to them if the work is to be ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley

... development may have resulted in the retardation which yields the symptoms of a feeble-minded brain, or the wrong training may have created vicious habits, firmly established in the mind-brain system and gravely disturbing the equilibrium. Above all, the overstrain of function, especially of emotional functions, may lead to that exhaustion which produces the state of neurasthenia. It is true that not a few would doubt whether we have the right to class neurasthenia here where we speak of the harm done to the normal brain. Many neurologists are inclined ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

... no tears were shed during the composition of this letter would be to overstrain fortitude beyond natural bounds. With difficulty Alicia checked the effusions of her pen. She wished to have said much more, and to have soothed the agony of renunciation by painting with warmth her ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... fifteenth day, when that we had gotten up and washt and eat and drank, the Maid did look unto my bandages; and did consider that I be healed very good, if but that I not to overstrain my body. And we then to dance, half in play and half in victory, but gentle; and afterward she to come with me that she give me aid that we get ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... toxins, or poisons, in the organism, which are particularly harmful to nervous tissue. It is these fatigue toxins that account for many of the nervous and mental disorders which accompany breakdowns from overwork. On the whole, the evil effects from mental overstrain are more to be feared ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... said, that anything had come between her and me; but I seemed to be remote, withdrawn, laid apart like some stiffening corpse in the tomb. She tried to reassure me, to show me that it was mainly physical, the overstrain of long and actively enjoyed work, and that all I needed was rest. She did not say one word of reproach, or anything to imply that I was unmanly and cowardly—indeed, she contrived, I know not how, to lead me to think that my state was in ordinary ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... evoked, and whom he had loved so deeply. The doctors said that the real cause of his death had been the Indian bullet, inflicting injury on the spine, which the elasticity of youth had for the time overcome, but which manifested itself again under overstrain. Ferdinand, when he awoke the child back to life, had given him years not spent in vain for himself ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... girls decided to forego their usual game of tennis and take an early dip instead. Nan had complained of an ache in the muscles of her right arm, and as the trouble almost undoubtedly came from overstrain, Walter had insisted that she ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr



Words linked to "Overstrain" :   extend, overextend



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