The strain threatened to pop her elbows from their sockets.

But he could feel the strain, the pressure of the mist on the walls of that tunnel, threatening to collapse it at any moment.

But the strain on institutional budgets threatens many of these arts-education surrogates.

Becoming so embroiled strains the relations with kin and co-villagers, threatening the only bulwark against the malevolence of the world outside.

When the little girl dies suddenly, the emotional strain threatens to destroy their marriage.

The strain alone threatened to overcome him.

He reported that the strain of coping with the expedition's aftereffects was threatening to wreck his marriage.

The constant strain of speaking threatened his voice, and he invented a system of talking books with recorded stories on tape.

However, new strains of Panama disease threaten the production of today's most popular cultivar, Cavendish.

The strain of his course load and his drive to succeed was threatening to drive him over the edge.