n. 25B6; noun
a different strain of flu : VARIETY, kind, type, sort; breed, genus.
Hawthorne was of Puritan strain : DESCENT, ancestry, origin(s), parentage, lineage, extraction, family, roots.
there was a strain of insanity in the family : TENDENCY, susceptibility, propensity, proneness; trait, disposition.
a strain of solemnity : ELEMENT, strand, vein, note, trace, touch, suggestion, hint.