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stream - 11 dictionary results

stream

  [streem]
Use stream in a Sentence
–noun
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.
–verb (used without object)
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.
–verb (used with object)
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.
—Idiom
17. on stream, in or into operation: The factory will be on stream in a month.
Origin:
bef. 900; (n.) ME streem, OE strēam; c. G Strom, ON straumr; akin to Gk rheîn to flow (see rheum ); (v.) ME streamen, deriv. of the n.

Related forms:
streamless, adjective
streamlike, adjective

Synonyms:
1. rill, run, streamlet, runnel. Stream, current refer to a steady flow. In this use they are interchangeable. In the sense of running water, however, a stream is a flow that may be as small as a brook or as large as a river: A number of streams have their sources in mountains. Current refers to the most rapidly moving part of the stream: This river has a swift current. 2. flow, tide. 6. torrent, rush. 8. pour.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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stream   (strēm)   
n.  
    1. A flow of water in a channel or bed, as a brook, rivulet, or small river.
    2. A steady current in such a flow of water.
  2. A steady current of a fluid.
  3. A steady flow or succession: a stream of insults. See Synonyms at flow.
  4. A trend, course, or drift, as of opinion, thought, or history.
  5. A beam or ray of light.
  6. Chiefly British A course of study to which students are tracked.
v.   streamed, stream·ing, streams

v.   intr.
  1. To flow in or as if in a stream.
  2. To pour forth or give off a stream; flow: My eyes were streaming with tears.
  3. To come or go in large numbers; pour: Traffic was streaming by. Fan mail streamed in.
  4. To extend, wave, or float outward: The banner streamed in the breeze.
    1. To leave a continuous trail of light.
    2. To give forth a continuous stream of light rays or beams; shine.
v.   tr.
  1. To emit, discharge, or exude (a body fluid, for example).
  2. Computer Science To transmit (data) in real time, especially over the Internet.

[Middle English streme, from Old English strēam; see sreu- in Indo-European roots.]
stream'y adj.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Stream

Stream\ (str[=e]m), n. [AS. stre['a]m; akin to OFries. str[=a]m, OS. str[=o]m, D. stroom, G. strom, OHG. stroum, str[=u]m, Dan. & Sw. str["o]m, Icel. straumr, Ir. sroth, Lith. srove, Russ. struia, Gr. "ry`sis a flowing, "rei^n to flow, Skr. sru. [root]174. Cf. Catarrh, Diarrhea, Rheum, Rhythm.]

1. A current of water or other fluid; a liquid flowing continuously in a line or course, either on the earth, as a river, brook, etc., or from a vessel, reservoir, or fountain; specifically, any course of running water; as, many streams are blended in the Mississippi; gas and steam came from the earth in streams; a stream of molten lead from a furnace; a stream of lava from a volcano.

2. A beam or ray of light. "Sun streams." --Chaucer.

3. Anything issuing or moving with continued succession of parts; as, a stream of words; a stream of sand. "The stream of beneficence." --Atterbury. "The stream of emigration." --Macaulay.

4. A continued current or course; as, a stream of weather. "The very stream of his life." --Shak.

5. Current; drift; tendency; series of tending or moving causes; as, the stream of opinions or manners.

Gulf stream. See under Gulf.

Stream anchor, Stream cable. (Naut.) See under Anchor, and Cable.

Stream ice, blocks of ice floating in a mass together in some definite direction.

Stream tin, particles or masses of tin ore found in alluvial ground; -- so called because a stream of water is the principal agent used in separating the ore from the sand and gravel.

Stream works (Cornish Mining), a place where an alluvial deposit of tin ore is worked. --Ure.

To float with the stream, figuratively, to drift with the current of opinion, custom, etc., so as not to oppose or check it.

Syn: Current; flow; rush; tide; course.

Usage: Stream, Current. These words are often properly interchangeable; but stream is the broader word, denoting a prevailing onward course. The stream of the Mississippi rolls steadily on to the Gulf of Mexico, but there are reflex currents in it which run for a while in a contrary direction.

Stream

Stream\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Streamed; p. pr. & vb. n. Streaming.]

1. To issue or flow in a stream; to flow freely or in a current, as a fluid or whatever is likened to fluids; as, tears streamed from her eyes.

Beneath those banks where rivers stream. --Milton.

2. To pour out, or emit, a stream or streams.

A thousand suns will stream on thee. --Tennyson.

3. To issue in a stream of light; to radiate.

4. To extend; to stretch out with a wavy motion; to float in the wind; as, a flag streams in the wind.

Stream

Stream\, v. t. To send forth in a current or stream; to cause to flow; to pour; as, his eyes streamed tears.

It may so please that she at length will stream Some dew of grace into my withered heart. --Spenser.

2. To mark with colors or embroidery in long tracts.

The herald's mantle is streamed with gold. --Bacon.

3. To unfurl. --Shak.

To stream the buoy. (Naut.) See under Buoy.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Language Translation for : stream
Spanish: riachuelo, arroyo,
German: der Wasserlauf,
Japanese: 小川
More Translations »

stream 
O.E. stream "a course of water," from P.Gmc. *straumaz (cf. O.S. strom, O.N. straumr, Dan. strøm, Swed. ström, Norw. straum, O.Fris. stram, Du. stroom, O.H.G. stroum, Ger. Strom "current, river"), from PIE base *sreu- "flow" (see rheum). Meaning "current in the sea" (e.g. Gulf Stream) is recorded from c.1375. The verb is attested from c.1225. Streamer "flag that streams in the air" is recorded from 1292. Stream of consciousness in lit crit first recorded 1931, originally in psychology (1855).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Main Entry: stream
Pronunciation: 'strEm
Function: noun
: an unbroken current or flow (as of water, a bodily fluid, a gas, or particles of matter) —seeBLOODSTREAM, MIDSTREAM
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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stream   (strēm)  Pronunciation Key 
  1. A flow of water in a channel or bed, as a brook, rivulet, or small river.
  2. A flow of a watery substance, such as blood in blood vessels or cytoplasm in fungal hyphae, in an organism or in part of an organism.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
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STREAM
["STREAM: A Scheme Language for Formally Describing Digital Circuits", C.D. Kloos in PARLE: Parallel Architectures and Languages Europe, LNCS 259, Springer 1987].
(1995-01-30)

stream
1. An abstraction referring to any flow of data from a source (or sender, producer) to a single sink (or receiver, consumer). A stream usually flows through a channel of some kind, as opposed to packets which may be addressed and routed independently, possibly to multiple recipients. Streams usually require some mechanism for establishing a channel or a "connection" between the sender and receiver.
2. In the C language's buffered input/ouput library functions, a stream is associated with a file or device which has been opened using fopen. Characters may be read from (written to) a stream without knowing their actual source (destination) and buffering is provided transparently by the library routines.
3. Confusingly, Sun have called their modular device driver mechanism "STREAMS".
4. In IBM's AIX operating system, a stream is a full-duplex processing and data transfer path between a driver in kernel space and a process in user space.
[IBM AIX 3.2 Communication Programming Concepts, SC23-2206-03].
5. streaming.
6. lazy list.
(1996-11-06)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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stream

see change horses in midstream; swim against the current (stream).

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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