string

Etymology

From Middle English string, streng, strynge, from Old English strenġ, from Proto-West Germanic *strangi, from Proto-Germanic *strangiz (“string”), from Proto-Indo-European *strengʰ- (“rope, cord, strand; to tighten”). Cognate with Scots string (“string”), Dutch streng (“cord, strand”), Low German strenge (“strand, cord, rope”), German Strang (“strand, cord, rope”), Danish streng (“string”), Swedish sträng (“string, cord, wire”), Icelandic strengur (“string”), Latvian stringt (“to be tight, wither”), Latin stringō (“I tighten”), Ancient Greek στραγγαλόομαι (strangalóomai, “to strangle”), from στραγγάλη (strangálē, “halter”), Ancient Greek στραγγός (strangós, “tied together, entangled, twisted”).

noun

1. (countable) A long, thin and flexible structure made from threads twisted together.
   Round Ormond's knee thou tiest the mystic string. (countable) A thread 1700, Matthew Prior, Carmen Seculare. for the Year 1700
2. (uncountable) Such a structure considered as a substance.
3. (countable) A thread
4. (countable) Any similar long, thin and flexible object.
   1. (music) A segment of wire (typically made of plastic or metal) or other material used as vibrating element on a musical instrument.
      a violinstring
      a bowstring
   2. (sports) A length of nylon or other material on the head of a racquet.
5. 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
   a string of sausages
6. (countable) A cohesive substance taking the form of a string.
   The string of spittle dangling from his chin was most unattractive
7. (countable) A series of items or events.
   In 1933, disgusted and discouraged after a string of commercial failures, Clara quit the film business forever. She was twenty-six. 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
   a string of successes
8. (countable) 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.
9. (countable) In various games and competitions, a certain number of turns at play, of rounds, etc.
10. (collective) A drove of horses, or a group of racehorses kept by one owner or at one stable.
11. (countable, programming) An ordered sequence of text characters stored consecutively in memory and capable of being processed as a single entity.
12. (music, metonymically, countable) A stringed instrument.
13. (music, 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.
14. (figurative, in the plural) The conditions and limitations in a contract collectively.
    no strings attached
    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." December 14 2022, Mel Holley, “Network News: Strikes go on as RMT rejects RDG's "detrimental" offer”, in RAIL, number 972, page 8
15. (countable, physics) The main object of study in string theory, a branch of theoretical physics.
16. (slang) Cannabis or marijuana.
17. (billiards) 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.
18. (historical, billiards) The buttons strung on a wire by which the score is kept.
19. (billiards, by extension) The points made in a game of billiards.
20. (billiards, 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.
21. A strip, as of leather, by which the covers of a book are held together.
22. (archaic) A fibre, as of a plant; a little fibrous root.
23. (archaic) A nerve or tendon of an animal body.
24. (carpentry) A board supporting steps
25. (shipbuilding) An inside range of ceiling planks, corresponding to the sheer strake on the outside and bolted to it.
26. (botany) The tough fibrous substance that unites the valves of the pericarp of leguminous plants.
    the strings of beans
27. (mining) A small, filamentous ramification of a metallic vein.
    a single miner is often found pursuing his solitary labours at a string or thin vein of ore 1833, Thomas Sopwith, An Account of the Mining Districts of Alston Moor, Weardale […]
28. (architecture, masonry) A stringcourse.
29. (dated, slang) A hoax; a fake story.
30. Synonym of stable (“group of prostitutes managed by one pimp”)
    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. 2006, Steve Niles, Jeff Mariotte, 30 Days of Night: Rumors of the Undead, page 307
31. (oil industry) A column of drill pipe that transmits drilling fluid (via the mud pumps) and torque (via the kelly drive or top drive) to the drill bit.

verb

1. (transitive) To put (items) on a string.
   You can string these beads on to this cord to make a colorful necklace.
2. (transitive) To put strings on (something).
   It is difficult to string a tennis racket properly.
3. (intransitive) To form into a string or strings, as a substance which is stretched, or people who are moving along, etc.
4. (intransitive, billiards) To drive the ball against the end of the table and back, in order to determine which player is to open the game.
5. (birdwatching) 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.
   To be honest, you'd be better off trying to string a Skylark as a Richard's Pipit rather than as a Pectoral Sandpiper. 1980, Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book, page 81
   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. 2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 67