Noun

string (countable and uncountable, plural strings)Category:English lemmas#STRINGCategory:English nouns#STRINGCategory:English uncountable nouns#STRINGCategory:English countable nouns#STRINGCategory:English countable nouns#STRINGCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#STRINGCategory:Pages with entries#STRINGCategory:Pages with 6 entries#STRING

1. (countableCategory:English countable nouns#STRING, uncountableCategory:English uncountable nouns#STRING) A long, thin and flexible structure made from threads twisted together.

   Synonyms: cord, rope, line, thread, twine; see also Thesaurus:string

   • 1700, Matthew Prior, Carmen Seculare. for the Year 1700:

     Round Ormond's knee thou tiest the mystic string.

     Category:English terms with quotations#STRING

     Category:Quotation templates to be cleaned
2. (countableCategory:English countable nouns#STRING) Any similar long, thin and flexible object.
   1. (musicCategory:en:Musical instruments#STRING) A segment of wire (typically made of plastic or metal) or other material used as vibrating element on a musical instrument.

      a violinstring

      Category:English terms with usage examples#STRING

      a bowstring

      Category:English terms with usage examples#STRING

   2. (sportsCategory:en:Sports#STRING) A length of nylon or other material on the head of a racquet.
3. A thread or cord on which a number of objects or parts are strung or arranged in close and orderly succession; hence, a line or series of things arranged on a thread, or as if so arranged.

   a string of shells or beads

   Category:English terms with usage examples#STRING

   a string of sausages

   Category:English terms with usage examples#STRING

   • 1776–1788, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: […] W[illiam] Strahan; and T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC:

     a string of islands

     Category:English terms with quotations#STRING

4. (countableCategory:English countable nouns#STRING) A cohesive substance taking the form of a string.

   The string of spittle dangling from his chin was most unattractive

   Category:English terms with usage examples#STRING

5. (countableCategory:English countable nouns#STRING) A series of items or events.

   Synonyms: sequence, series

   • 2012, Christoper Zara, Tortured Artists: From Picasso and Monroe to Warhol and Winehouse, the Twisted Secrets of the World's Most Creative Minds, part 1, chapter 1, 27:

     In 1933, disgusted and discouraged after a string of commercial failures, Clara quit the film business forever. She was twenty-six.

     Category:English terms with quotations#STRING

     Category:Quotation templates to be cleaned

   a string of successes

   Category:English terms with usage examples#STRING

6. (countableCategory:English countable nouns#STRING) The members of a sports team or squad regarded as most likely to achieve success. (Perhaps metaphorical as the "strings" that hold the squad together.) Often first string, second string etc.
7. (countableCategory:English countable nouns#STRING) In various games and competitions, a certain number of turns at play, of rounds, etc.
8. (collectiveCategory:English collective nouns#STRING) A drove of horses, or a group of racehorses kept by one owner or at one stable.
10. (countableCategory:English countable nouns#STRING, programmingCategory:en:Programming#STRING) An ordered sequence of text characters stored consecutively in memory and capable of being processed as a single entity.
11. (musicCategory:en:Music#STRING, metonymicCategory:English metonyms#STRING, countableCategory:English countable nouns#STRING) A stringed instrument.
12. (musicCategory:en:Music#STRING, usually in the plural) The stringed instruments as a section of an orchestra, especially those played by a bow, or the persons playing those instruments.

    Synonym: string section

13. (figurative, in the plural) The conditions and limitations in a contract collectively.

    Synonyms: conditions, provisions

    no strings attached

    Category:English terms with usage examples#STRING

    • 2022 December 14, Mel Holley, “Network News: Strikes go on as RMT rejects RDG's "detrimental" offer”, in RAIL, number 972, page 8:

      But he added: "The RDG offer contains more strings than a harp, including some which have never previously been discussed. It also omits significant points that had previously been negotiated."

      Category:English terms with quotations#STRING

14. (countableCategory:English countable nouns#STRING, physicsCategory:en:Physics#STRING) A tiny one-dimensional string-like entity, the main object of study in string theory, a branch of theoretical physics.
15. (slangCategory:English slang#STRING) Cannabis or marijuana. (Can we add an example for this sense?)Category:Requests for example sentences in English#STRING
16. (billiardsCategory:en:Billiards#STRING) Part of the game of billiards, where the order of the play is determined by testing who can get a ball closest to the bottom rail by shooting it onto the end rail.
17. (historicalCategory:English terms with historical senses#STRING, billiardsCategory:en:Billiards#STRING) The buttons strung on a wire by which the score is kept.
18. (billiardsCategory:en:Billiards#STRING, by extension) The points made in a game of billiards.
19. (billiardsCategory:en:Billiards#STRING, pool) The line from behind and over which the cue ball must be played after being out of play, as by being pocketed or knocked off the table; also called the string line.
20. A strip, as of leather, by which the covers of a book are held together.
    • 1641 May, John Milton, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England: And the Cavvses that hitherto have Hindred it; republished as Will Taliaferro Hale, editor, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England (Yale Studies in English; LIV), New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1916, →OCLC:

      Many of those that pretend to be great Rabbies in these studies have scarce saluted them from the strings, and the titlepage.

      Category:English terms with quotations#STRING

21. (archaicCategory:English terms with archaic senses#STRING) A fibre, as of a plant; a little fibrous root.
    • 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:

      Duckweed putteth forth a little string into the water, from the bottom.

      Category:English terms with quotations#STRING

22. (archaicCategory:English terms with archaic senses#STRING) A nerve or tendon of an animal body.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Mark 7:35:

      The string of his tongue was loosed.

      Category:English terms with quotations#STRING

23. (carpentryCategory:en:Carpentry#STRING) A board supporting steps

    Synonyms: stringer, stringboard, stringpiece

24. (shipbuilding) An inside range of ceiling planks, corresponding to the sheer strake on the outside and bolted to it.
25. (botanyCategory:en:Botany#STRING) The tough fibrous substance that unites the valves of the pericarp of leguminous plants.

    the strings of beans

    Category:English terms with usage examples#STRING

26. (miningCategory:en:Mining#STRING) A small, filamentous ramification of a metallic vein.
    • 1833, Thomas Sopwith, An Account of the Mining Districts of Alston Moor, Weardale […] :

      a single miner is often found pursuing his solitary labours at a string or thin vein of ore

      Category:English terms with quotations#STRING

27. (architectureCategory:en:Architecture#STRING, masonryCategory:en:Masonry#STRING) A stringcourse.
28. (datedCategory:English dated terms#STRING, slangCategory:English slang#STRING) A hoax; a fake story.
29. (slangCategory:English slang#STRING) Synonym of stable (“group of prostitutes managed by one pimp”).
    • 2006, Steve Niles, Jeff Mariotte, 30 Days of Night: Rumors of the Undead, page 307:

      They were turning tricks, doing drugs, and generally little better off than they had been before, except that they were keeping more of their money. But they seemed lonely, too, without the company of their pimp and the rest of his string.

      Category:English terms with quotations#STRING

      Category:Quotation templates to be cleaned
30. (oil industryCategory:en:Oil industry#STRING) A column of drill pipe that transmits drilling fluid (using the mud pumps) and torque (using the kelly drive or top drive) to the drill bit.

Verb

string (third-person singular simple present strings, present participle stringing, simple past strung or (colloquial) stringed or strang, past participle strung or (colloquial) stringed)Category:English lemmas#STRINGCategory:English verbs#STRINGCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#STRINGCategory:Pages with entries#STRINGCategory:Pages with 6 entries#STRING

1. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#STRING) To put (items) on a string.

   You can string these beads on to this cord to make a colorful necklace.

   Category:English terms with usage examples#STRING

2. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#STRING) To put strings on (something).

   It is difficult to string a tennis racket properly.

   Category:English terms with usage examples#STRING

3. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#STRING) To form into a string or strings, as a substance which is stretched, or people who are moving along, etc.
4. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#STRING, billiardsCategory:en:Billiards#STRING) To drive the ball against the end of the table and back, in order to determine which player is to open the game.
5. (birdwatchingCategory:en:Birdwatching#STRING) To deliberately state that a certain bird is present when it is not; to knowingly mislead other birders about the occurrence of a bird, especially a rarity; to misidentify a common bird as a rare species.
   • 1980, Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book, page 81:

     To be honest, you'd be better off trying to string a Skylark as a Richard's Pipit rather than as a Pectoral Sandpiper.

     Category:English terms with quotations#STRING

   • 2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 67:

     For instance he might see a White-eared Honeyeater, a not uncommon bird in the heathy areas at Bunyip, but in his excitement to call it, something in his brain scrambled and came out as: `White-cheeked Honeyeater!' White-cheeked Honeyeater is an absolute stonking crippler in Victoria, but Stu was not actually trying to string a rarity, he'd just got such a flood of new information swirling around his brain that sometimes it got jumbled up.

     Category:English terms with quotations#STRING

Synonyms

• (character string): tekenreeks
• (G-string): reetveter

Declension

Derived terms

• stringkalsong
• stringtrosa