distress vs strain

distress

noun
  • An aversive state of stress to which a person cannot fully adapt. 

  • A cause of such discomfort. 

  • The thing taken by distraining; that which is seized to procure satisfaction. 

  • Physical or emotional discomfort, suffering, or alarm, particularly of a more acute nature. 

  • Serious danger. 

  • A seizing of property without legal process to force payment of a debt. 

verb
  • To treat a new object to give it an appearance of age. 

  • To retain someone’s property against the payment of a debt; to distrain. 

  • To cause strain or anxiety to someone. 

strain

noun
  • The act of straining, or the state of being strained. 

  • Language that is eloquent, poetic, or otherwise heightened. 

  • An injury resulting from violent effort; a sprain. 

  • Any sustained note or movement; a song; a distinct portion of an ode or other poem; also, the pervading note, or burden, of a song, poem, etc. 

  • A dimensionless measure of object deformation either referring to engineering strain or true strain. 

  • A kind or sort (of person etc.). 

  • A particular variety of a microbe, virus, or other organism, usually a taxonomically infraspecific one. 

  • A violent effort; an excessive and hurtful exertion or tension, as of the muscles. 

  • Hereditary character, quality, tendency, or disposition. 

verb
  • To damage by drawing, stretching, or the exertion of force. 

  • To urge with importunity; to press. 

  • To act upon, in any way, so as to cause change of form or volume, as when bending a beam. 

  • To apply a force or forces to by stretching out. 

  • To exert or struggle (to do something), especially to stretch (one's senses, faculties etc.) beyond what is normal or comfortable. 

  • To separate solid from liquid by passing through a strainer or colander 

  • To percolate; to be filtered. 

  • To make uneasy or unnatural; to produce with apparent effort; to force; to constrain. 

  • hug somebody; to hold somebody tightly. 

  • To stretch beyond its proper limit; to do violence to, in terms of intent or meaning. 

How often have the words distress and strain occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )