Stream

Pronunciation

• IPA: /striːm/
• Rhymes: -iːm

Origin

From Middle English streem, strem, from Old English strēam ("a stream, current, flowing water; flood"), from Proto-Germanic *straumaz ("stream"), from Proto-Indo-European *srowmos ("river"), from Proto-Indo-European *srew- ("to flow"). Cognate with Scots strem, streme, streym ("stream, river"), North Frisian strum ("stream"), West Frisian stream ("stream"), Low German Stroom ("stream"), Dutch stroom ("current, flow, stream"), German Strom ("current, stream"), Danish strøm ("current, stream, flow"), Swedish ström ("current, stream, flow"), Icelandic straumur ("current, stream, torrent, flood"), Ancient Greek ῥεῦμα (rheuma, "stream, flow"), Lithuanian srovė ("current, stream").

Noun

1. A small river; a large creek; a body of moving water confined by banks.
• 1898, Winston Churchill, The Celebrity Chapter 8, Now we plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges over the cold trout-streams, the boards giving back the clatter of our horses' feet:....
• 2013-01, Nancy Langston, The Fraught History of a Watery World, European adventurers found themselves within a watery world, a tapestry of streams, channels, wetlands, lakes and lush riparian meadows enriched by floodwaters from the Mississippi River.
2. A thin connected passing of a liquid through a lighter gas (e.g. air).
   He poured the milk in a thin stream from the jug to the glass.
3. Any steady flow or succession of material, such as water, air, radio signal or words.
   Her constant nagging was to him a stream of abuse.
• 1963, Margery Allingham, The China Governess Chapter 10, With a little manÅ“uvring they contrived to meet on the doorstep which was … in a boiling stream of passers-by, hurrying business people speeding past in a flurry of fumes and dust in the bright haze.
• 2011, December 21, Helen Pidd, Europeans migrate south as continent drifts deeper into crisis, A new stream of migrants is leaving the continent. It threatens to become a torrent if the debt crisis continues to worsen.
4. (sciences) An umbrella term for all moving waters.
5. (computing) A source or repository of data that can be read or written only sequentially.
6. (UK, education) A division of a school year by perceived ability.
   All of the bright kids went into the A stream, but I was in the B stream.

Synonyms

• beck
• brook
• burn
• creek
• flow
• rill

Related terms

• streamer
• river
• jet stream
• Gulf Stream

Full definition of stream

Verb

1. (intransitive) To flow in a continuous or steady manner, like a liquid.
• Miltonbeneath those banks where rivers stream
• 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet Chapter 4When I came to myself I was lying, not in the outer blackness of the Mohune vault, not on a floor of sand; but in a bed of sweet clean linen, and in a little whitewashed room, through the window of which the spring sunlight streamed.
2. To extend; to stretch out with a wavy motion; to float in the wind.A flag streams in the wind.
3. (Internet) To push continuous data (e.g. music) from a server to a client computer while it is being used (played) on the client.

Anagrams

• armest, armets, Master, master, mastre, maters, matres, METARs, remast, tamers, tremas