stringer

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. One that strings: a stringer of beads.
2. n. Architecture A long heavy horizontal timber used as a support or connector.
3. n. Architecture A stringboard.
4. n. A horizontal timber used to support upright posts.
5. n. Sports A member of a specified string or squad on a team. Often used in combination: a first-stringer; a second-stringer.
6. n. A part-time or freelance correspondent for the news media.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. One who strings. One who makes or furnishes strings for a bow. Nares.
2. n. A device for attaching piano-strings to a ridge cast specially for that purpose on the plate, instead of winding them around tuning wrest-pins inserted in the wrest-pin plank. It is a small hooked steel bar with a screw-threaded shank that is passed through the ridge and then secured by a nut. The wire string is first passed through a hole in the hooked end of the stringer, and then looped once around the hook. In tuning, the string is tightened by turning the nut on the shank of the stringer.
3. n. In railway engin., a longitudinal timber on which a rail is fastened, and which rests on transverse sleepers.
4. n. In ship-building, an inside strake of plank or of plates, secured to the ribs and supporting the ends of the beams; a shelf. See cut under beam, 2 .
5. n. In carpentry: A horizontal timber connecting two posts in a framework.
6. n. Same as string-board.
7. n. A tie in a truss or a truss-bridge.
8. n. A fornicator; a wencher.
9. n. A small stick or switch used to string fish on by the gills.
10. n. In iron ship-building, a longitudinal member built of plates and bars in the interior of a vessel which reinforces and supports the framing above the turn of the bilge. Similar members below the turn of the bilge are called keelsons. See keelson, 2.
11. n. In geology, a narrow vein or dike.

Wiktionary

1. n. Someone who threads something; one who makes or provides strings, especially for bows.
2. n. Someone who leads someone along.
3. n. A horizontal timber that supports upright posts, or supports the hull of a vessel
4. n. A freelance correspondent not on the regular newspaper staff, especially one retained on a part-time basis to report on events in a particular place.
5. n. surfing Wooden strip running lengthwise down the centre of a surfboard, for strength.
6. n. baseball, slang, 1800s A hard-hit ball.
7. n. fishing A cord or chain, sometimes with additional loops, that is threaded through the mouth and gills of caught fish.
8. n. obsolete A libertine; a wencher.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. One who strings; one who makes or provides strings, especially for bows.
2. n. obsolete A libertine; a wencher.
3. n. (Railroad) A longitudinal sleeper.
4. n. (Shipbuilding) A streak of planking carried round the inside of a vessel on the under side of the beams.
5. n. (Carp.) A long horizontal timber to connect uprights in a frame, or to support a floor or the like.
6. n. (Newspapers) A reporter or correspondent who works for a news agency on a part-time basis, especially one covering local news for a newspaper published in a different area; -- called also string correspondent.
7. n. (Aviation) a longitudinal supporting structure to reinforce the skin of an airplane fuselage.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a worker who strings
2. n. a member of a squad on a team
3. n. brace consisting of a longitudinal member to strengthen a fuselage or hull
4. n. a long horizontal timber to connect uprights