streak

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A line, mark, smear, or band differentiated by color or texture from its surroundings.
2. n. An inherent, often contrasting quality: "There was a streak of wildness in him” ( Olga Carlisle).
3. n. A ray or flash of light: the first streaks of dawn; a streak of lightning.
4. n. Informal A brief run or stretch, as of luck.
5. n. Informal An unbroken series, as of wins or losses.
6. n. Mineralogy The color of the fine powder produced when a mineral is rubbed against a hard surface. Used as a distinguishing characteristic.
7. n. Botany Any of various viral diseases of plants characterized by the appearance of discolored stripes on the leaves or stems.
8. n. Microbiology A bacterial culture inoculated by drawing a bacteria-laden needle across the surface of a solid culture medium.
9. v. To mark with streaks: rain streaking the pavement.
10. v. To lighten (strands of hair) with a chemical preparation.
11. v. Microbiology To inoculate in order to produce a streak.
12. v. To form streaks.
13. v. To be or become streaked.
14. v. To move at high speed; rush.
15. v. To run naked in public, especially as a prank.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To run swiftly.
2. n. A line, band, or stripe of somewhat irregular shape.
3. n. In mineralogy, the line or mark of fine powder produced when a mineral is scratched, or when it is rubbed upon a hard, rough surface, as that of unglazed porcelain. The color of the streak is often an important character, particularly in the case of minerals having a metallic luster. For example, certain massive forms of the iron ores hematite and magnetite resemble each other closely, but are readily distinguished by the fact that the former has a red and the latter a black streak.
4. n. In zoology, a color-mark of considerable length for its width, and generally less firm and regular than a stripe. See streaked, streaky, and compare stripe, 1.
5. n. Figuratively, a trait; a vein; a turn of character or disposition; a whim.
6. n. Nautical, same as strake, 6.
7. n. A rung of a ladder.
8. n. A short piece of iron, six of which form the wheel-tire of a wooden artillery-carriage.
9. To put a streak upon or in; break up the surface of by one or more streaks.
10. To stretch; extend.
11. To lay out, as a dead body.
12. To stretch out; shoot, as a rocket or a shooting-star.
13. n. In turpentine-making, the portion of a bled pine-tree from which the resin exudes.

Wiktionary

1. n. An irregular line left from smearing or motion.
2. n. A continuous series of like events.
3. n. The color of the powder of a mineral. So called, because a simple field test for a mineral is to streak it against unglazed white porcelain.
4. n. A moth of the family Geometridae Chesias legatella.
5. n. A tendency or characteristic, but not a dominant or pervasive one.
6. v. intransitive to have or obtain streaks.
7. v. intransitive, slang to run naked in public
8. v. transitive to create streaks
9. v. transitive To move very swiftly.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. Obs. or Prov. Eng. & Scot. To stretch; to extend; hence, to lay out, as a dead body.
2. n. A line or long mark of a different color from the ground; a stripe; a vein.
3. n. (Shipbuilding) A strake.
4. n. (Min.) The fine powder or mark yielded by a mineral when scratched or rubbed against a harder surface, the color of which is sometimes a distinguishing character.
5. n. obsolete The rung or round of a ladder.
6. v. To form streaks or stripes in or on; to stripe; to variegate with lines of a different color, or of different colors.
7. v. colloq. With it as an object: To run swiftly.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a narrow marking of a different color or texture from the background
2. v. run naked in a public place
3. n. a sudden flash (as of lightning)
4. v. mark with spots or blotches of different color or shades of color as if stained
5. n. an unbroken series of events
6. v. move quickly in a straight line
7. n. a distinctive characteristic