| 1. | a body of water flowing in a channel or watercourse, as a river, rivulet, or brook. |
| 2. | a steady current in water, as in a river or the ocean: to row against the stream; the Gulf Stream. |
| 3. | any flow of water or other liquid or fluid: streams of blood. |
| 4. | a current or flow of air, gas, or the like. |
| 5. | a beam or trail of light: A stream of moonlight fell from the clouds. |
| 6. | a continuous flow or succession of anything: a stream of words. |
| 7. | prevailing direction; drift: the stream of opinion. |
| 8. | to flow, pass, or issue in a stream, as water, tears, or blood. |
| 9. | to send forth or throw off a stream; run or flow (often fol. by with): eyes streaming with tears. |
| 10. | to extend in a beam or in rays, as light: Sunlight streamed in through the windows. |
| 11. | to move or proceed continuously like a flowing stream, as a procession. |
| 12. | to wave or float outward, as a flag in the wind. |
| 13. | to hang in a loose, flowing manner, as long hair. |
| 14. | to send forth or discharge in a stream: The wound streamed blood. |
| 15. | to cause to stream or float outward, as a flag. |
| 16. | Nautical. to place (an object) in the water at the end of a line attached to a vessel. |
| 17. | on stream, in or into operation: The factory will be on stream in a month. |

stream (strēm) n.
v. intr.
[Middle English streme, from Old English strēam; see sreu- in Indo-European roots.] stream'y adj. |
stream (strēm) Pronunciation Key
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STREAMS operating system
A collection of system calls, kernel resources, and kernel utility routines that can create, use, and dismantle a stream. A "stream head" provides the interface between the stream and the user processes. Its principal function is to process STREAMS-related user system calls. A "stream module" processes data that travel bewteen the stream head and driver. The "stream end" provides the services of an external input/output device or an internal software driver. The internal software driver is commonly called a pseudo-device driver.
The STREAMS concept has been formalised in Unix System V. For example, SVR4 implements sockets and pipes using STREAMS, resulting in pipe(2) openning bidirectional pipes.
[IBM AIX 3.2 Communication Programming Concepts, SC23-2206-03].
(1999-06-29)