string

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A cord usually made of fiber, used for fastening, tying, or lacing.
2. n. Something configured as a long, thin line: limp strings of hair.
3. n. A plant fiber.
4. n. A set of objects threaded together: a string of beads.
5. n. A series of similar or related acts, events, or items arranged or falling in or as if in a line. See Synonyms at series.
6. n. Computer Science A set of consecutive characters.
7. n. Informal A set of animals, especially racehorses, belonging to a single owner; a stable.
8. n. Informal A scattered group of businesses under a single ownership or management: a string of boutiques.
9. n. Sports A group of players ranked according to ability within a team: He made the second string.
10. n. Music A cord stretched on an instrument and struck, plucked, or bowed to produce tones.
11. n. Music The section of a band or orchestra composed of stringed instruments.
12. n. Music Stringed instruments or their players considered as a group.
13. n. Architecture A stringboard.
14. n. Architecture A stringcourse.
15. n. Games The balk line in billiards.
16. n. Sports A complete game consisting of ten frames in bowling.
17. n. Informal A limiting or hidden condition. Often used in the plural: a gift with no strings attached.
18. v. To fit or furnish with strings or a string: string a guitar.
19. v. To thread on a string.
20. v. To arrange in a string or series. Often used with out.
21. v. To fasten, tie, or hang with a string or strings.
22. v. To stretch out or extend: string a wire across a room.
23. v. To strip (vegetables) of fibers.
24. v. To form strings or become stringlike.
25. v. To extend or progress in a string, line, or succession.
26. string along Informal To go along with something; agree.
27. string along Informal To keep (someone) waiting or in a state of uncertainty.
28. string along Informal To fool, cheat, or deceive.
29. string out To draw out; prolong.
30. string up Informal To kill (someone) by hanging.
31. idiom. a Under one's complete control or influence.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A slender cord; a thick thread; a line; a twine; a narrow band, thong, or ribbon; also, anything which ties.
2. n. A strip, as of leather, by which the covers of a book are held together.
3. n. The line or cord of a bow.
4. n. In musical instruments, a tightly stretched cord or wire by the vibration of which tones are produced. The materials most used are gut, as in instruments of the lute and viol families, and brass or steel, as in the mandolin, the zither, and the pianoforte, though silk is also used. Silk strings are usually, and metal strings sometimes, wound with light silver wire to increase their weight; and such strings are often called silver strings. The pitch of the tone produced depends on the density, tension, and vibrating length of the string. The vibration is produced either by plucking or twanging with the finger, by a plectrum, or by a jack, as in the lute and harp families generally, and in the harpsichord; by the friction of a bow, as iu the viol family; by a stream of air, as in the æolian harp; or by the blow of a hammer, as in the dulcimer and the pianoforte. The strings are named either by the letters of the tones to which they are tuned, or by numbers. The smallest string of several representatives of the lute and viol families is often called the chanterelle, because commonly used for the principal melody or cantus. The tuning of strings is effected usually by means of tuning-pins or -pegs, which in lutes and viols are placed in the head of the instrument, but in harps, zithers, and pianofortes in one side or rim of the frame. Not only has each instrument had a varying number of strings in different countries and at different periods, but the accordatura, or system of pitches, to which they are tuned has also varied. The vibrating length of the strings in instruments of the lute and viol families may be diminished, and the pitch of their tones raised, by pressing them with the fingers of the left hand against the finger-board. The exact places for such shortening or “stopping” are sometimes marked by frets, as in the guitar and also in the zither. The modern harp is provided with a mechanism for raising the pitch of certain sets of strings one or two semitones by means of pedals.
5. n. plural Stringed instruments, especially the stringed instruments of a band or orchestra taken collectively—that is, violins, violas, violoncellos, and double basses—in distinction from the wind and the percussives.
6. n. Something resembling a string. A tendril, or vegetable fiber; particularly, the tough substance that unites the two parts of the pericarp of leguminous plants: as, the strings of beans.
7. n. In mining, a thin seam or branch of a lode; a small vein; a fissure filled with mineral or metalliferous matter, but wanting in regularity and permanence.
8. n. A nerve or tendon of an animal body.
9. n. A cord or thread on which anything is filed; a file; also, a set of things strung on a string or file: as, a string of beads; hence, any series of persons or things connected or following in succession; a series or succession of persons, animals, or things extending in a line.
10. n. A drove or company of horses or steers; a stud.
11. n. In billiards: A number of wooden buttons strung on a wire to keep the score or tally of the game. There is a string for each player or side, one white with every fifth button black, the other the converse of this, for convenience in counting the buttons to be moved along the wire for each run made by either player or side.
12. n. The score, tally, or number of points scored by either player or side at any stage of a game: as, he made a poor string at first, but won.
13. n. A stroke made by each player from the head of the table to the opposite cushion and back, to determine, by means of the resultant positions of the balls, who shall open the game.
14. n. In architecture, a string-course.
15. n. In ship-building, the highest range of planks in a ship's ceiling, or that between the gunwale and the upper edge of the upper-deck ports.
16. n. In printing, a piece-compositor's aggregate of the proofs of types set by him, pasted on a long strip of paper. The amount of work done is determined by the measurement of this string.
17. n. The stringy albumen of an egg. See chalaza.
18. n. A hoax, or discredited story.
19. To furnish with strings.
20. To put in tune the strings of, as of a stringed instrument.
21. To make tense; impart vigor to; tone. See high-strung.
22. To fasten, suspend, or hang with a string: as, to string a parcel; to string up a dog.
23. To thread or file on a string: as, to string beads.
24. To prepare for use, as a bow, by bending it sufficiently to slip the bowstring into its notches, so that the string is tightly strained.
25. To extend in a string, series, or line.
26. To deprive of strings; strip the strings from: as, to string beans.
27. To carve (lampreys).
28. To stretch out into a string or strings when pulled; become stringy.
29. To walk or move along in a string or disconnected line; straggle: as, they came stringing along.
30. In billiards, to hit one's ball so that it will go the length of the table and back, to determine who shall open the game.
31. n. A defect sometimes observable in articles of glass, arising from a small bit of solid glass which has fallen into the melting-pot, or been taken up at the end of the blowpipe, and failed to fuse and become uniformly mixed with the rest of the material, so that a slender ridge is formed on the surface of the blown article.
32. n. In stair-building, same as string-piece.
33. To fool or deceive.

Wiktionary

1. n. countable A long, thin and flexible structure made from threads twisted together.
2. n. uncountable Such a structure considered as a substance.
3. n. countable Any similar long, thin and flexible object.
4. n. countable A cohesive substance taking the form of string.
5. n. countable A series of items or events.
6. n. countable, computing An ordered sequence of symbols or characters stored consecutively in memory and capable of being processed as a single entity.
7. n. music, countable A stringed instrument.
8. n. music, usually in plural The stringed instruments as a section of an orchestra, especially those played by a bow, or the persons playing those instruments.
9. n. in the plural The conditions and limitations in a contract collecively. (cf. no strings attached)
10. n. countable (physics) the main object of study in string theory, a branch of theoretical physics
11. n. A slang term for cannabis or marijuana
12. n. A minigame 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.
13. v. transitive To put (items) on a string.
14. v. transitive To put strings on (something).

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A small cord, a line, a twine, or a slender strip of leather, or other substance, used for binding together, fastening, or tying things; a cord, larger than a thread and smaller than a rope
2. n. 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 succession; a concatenation; a chain
3. n. A strip, as of leather, by which the covers of a book are held together.
4. n. The cord of a musical instrument, as of a piano, harp, or violin; specifically (pl.), the stringed instruments of an orchestra, in distinction from the wind instruments.
5. n. The line or cord of a bow.
6. n. A fiber, as of a plant; a little, fibrous root.
7. n. A nerve or tendon of an animal body.
8. n. (Shipbuilding) An inside range of ceiling planks, corresponding to the sheer strake on the outside and bolted to it.
9. n. (Bot.) The tough fibrous substance that unites the valves of the pericap of leguminous plants, and which is readily pulled off.
10. n. (Mining) A small, filamentous ramification of a metallic vein.
11. n. (Arch.) Same as Stringcourse.
12. n. (Billiards) The points made in a game.
13. n. In various indoor games, a score or tally, sometimes, as in American billiard games, marked by buttons threaded on a string or wire.
14. n. In various games, competitions, etc., a certain number of turns at play, of rounds, etc.
15. n. 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; -- called also string line.
16. n. Act of stringing for break.
17. n. Slang A hoax; a trumped-up or “fake” story.
18. n. a sequence of similar objects or events sufficiently close in time or space to be perceived as a group.
19. n. (Physics) A one-dimensional string-like mathematical object used as a means of representing the properties of fundamental particles in string theory, one theory of particle physics; such hypothetical objects are one-dimensional and very small (10-33 cm) but exist in more than four spatial dimensions, and have various modes of vibration. Considering particles as strings avoids some of the problems of treating particles as points, and allows a unified treatment of gravity along with the other three forces (electromagnetism, the weak force, and the strong force) in a manner consistent with quantum mechanics. See also string theory.
20. v. To furnish with strings.
21. v. To put in tune the strings of, as a stringed instrument, in order to play upon it.
22. v. To put on a string; to file.
23. v. To make tense; to strengthen.
24. v. To deprive of strings; to strip the strings from. See String, n., 9.
25. v. Slang To hoax; josh; jolly; often used with along.
26. v. To form into a string or strings, as a substance which is stretched, or people who are moving along, etc.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a tightly stretched cord of wire or gut, which makes sound when plucked, struck, or bowed
2. v. provide with strings
3. n. a tough piece of fiber in vegetables, meat, or other food (especially the tough fibers connecting the two halves of a bean pod)
4. n. a sequentially ordered set of things or events or ideas in which each successive member is related to the preceding
5. v. add as if on a string
6. n. a necklace made by a stringing objects together
7. v. thread on or as if on a string
8. v. string together; tie or fasten with a string
9. n. stringed instruments that are played with a bow
10. v. move or come along
11. n. a tie consisting of a cord that goes through a seam around an opening
12. n. a collection of objects threaded on a single strand
13. n. a linear sequence of symbols (characters or words or phrases)
14. v. stretch out or arrange like a string
15. n. a lightweight cord
16. v. remove the stringy parts of
17. n. (cosmology) a hypothetical one-dimensional subatomic particle having a concentration of energy and the dynamic properties of a flexible loop