The word "straining" is a correct and common word in written English.
You can use it to mean putting extra effort or energy into something, or making a great attempt to do something. For example, "The marathon runner was straining to reach the finish line."
Sinn Féin, which is straining to keep its anti-austerity policies north and south of the border in alignment, warned of an impending crisis that could "engulf the political institutions" of Northern Ireland.
Our hospitals are straining under the burden, our police forces and ambulance services are stretched to the limits and communities are left picking up the pieces.
Wines such as these are made by steeping your plant of choice in boiling water for a number of days, straining the liquid and then adding a lot of refined sugar and yeast and leaving it to ferment.
Why does William Hague's voice sound like he is holding in a sneeze and straining at the same time?
We can do our utmost to imagine what war and invasion mean, but we have only the imagination to help us; they have the real thing burning into their consciousness the necessity of straining every sinew to put an end to it.
Go to YouTube and play the clip; hear the American commentators straining to howl over the cacophony; hear the feedback as the TV microphones struggle to cope with the sheets of noise.
Landlocked and increasingly barren due to climate change, Chad is also straining to accommodate 150,000 of its citizens entering from the desert north – returnee guest workers expelled from Libya after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.
The men lie down, twisted up, in cold, filthy water, with rats in it, stretching and straining to follow the coal.
At Bournemouth, the carriage filled up with the semi-naked youngsters of the hashtag generation, with crooked plastic eyelashes, straining bra straps and smooth, dewy skin.
Infrastructure is also straining under rapid population growth, and wireless and broadband technology is not yet widely available in many public places.
