stripe

Etymology

Of Dutch or Low German origin, from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German strīpe, from Proto-Germanic *stripan. Cognate with Dutch streep.

noun

1. A long region of a single colour in a repeating pattern of similar regions.
   zebra stripes
2. A long, relatively straight region against a different coloured background.
   8 Sep 2019, Peter Conrad in The Guardian, Sontag: Her Life by Benjamin Moser review – heavyweight study of a critical colossus At first, what mattered was the sparky contents of Sontag’s head; by the end she was best known for the way she wore her hair – that saturnine battle helmet of dyed black, with a single stripe left white at the temple like a Frankensteinian lightning bolt of intellect.
3. (in the plural) The badge worn by certain officers in the military or other forces.
4. (informal) Distinguishing characteristic; sign; likeness; sort.
   persons of the same political stripe
   20 May 2018, Hadley Freeman in The Guardian, Is Meghan Markle the American the royals have needed all along? Everyone I spoke to had waved flags at Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding, had camped out for Diana’s funeral and, in some cases, her ill-fated wedding. (No one mentioned going to Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson’s now all-but forgotten wedding, and yet the awkward truth is that Harry and Meghan’s marriage is no more significant than that one was, in terms of lineage.) Not being a royalist of any stripe, I’d not been to any of those.
5. A long, narrow mark left by striking someone with a whip or stick; a blow with a whip or stick.
   1735, James Thomson, The Four Seasons, and Other Poems, London: J. Millan and A. Millar, “Winter,” lines 353-354, p. 21, [Tyrants] at pleasure mark’d him with inglorious stripes;
6. A slash cut into the flesh as a punishment.
   But if there were any one who tried and could not make her laugh, he would have three red stripes cut out of his back and salt rubbed into them and, sad to relate, there were many sore backs in that kingdom. 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 269
7. (weaving) A pattern produced by arranging the warp threads in sets of alternating colours, or in sets presenting some other contrast of appearance.
8. Any of the balls marked with stripes in the game of pool, which one player aims to pot, the other player taking the spots.
9. (computing) A portion of data distributed across several separate physical disks for the sake of redundancy.
10. (motor racing, slang) The start/finish line.

verb

1. (transitive) To mark with stripes.
2. (transitive) To lash with a whip or strap.
   I did try to ask questions and talk to Nanny but different things but that was considered "Talking back" or sassing which resulted in the striping of the legs or mashing of one's mouth, and then being put in the dark closet until the crying stopped. 2010, Susan Gore, A Blessing of Sunshine & Wrath, page 13
   But when practice yielded no improvement, curses and the crack of a whip followed. Stripped, lying face down on the ground, Platt absorbed the master's rage, lash after lash striping his buttocks, shoulders, and back. 2012, Mark Fiege, The Republic of Nature: An Environmental History of the United States
3. (transitive, computing) To distribute data across several separate physical disks to reduce the time to read and write.