stream

Etymology

From Middle English streem, strem, from Old English strēam, from Proto-West Germanic *straum, from Proto-Germanic *straumaz (“stream”), from Proto-Indo-European *srowmos (“river”), from Proto-Indo-European *srew- (“to flow”). Doublet of rheum.

Cognate with Scots strem, streme, streym (“stream, river”), North Frisian strum (“stream”), West Frisian stream (“stream”), Low German Stroom (“stream”), Dutch stroom (“current, flow, stream”), German Strom (“current, stream”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål strøm (“current, stream, flow”), Norwegian Nynorsk straum (“current, stream, flow”), Swedish ström (“current, stream, flow”), Icelandic straumur (“current, stream, torrent, flood”), Ancient Greek ῥεῦμα (rheûma, “stream, flow”), Lithuanian srovė (“current, stream”) Polish strumień (“stream”), Welsh ffrwd (“stream, current”), Scottish Gaelic sruth (“stream”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: strēm, IPA^(key): /stɹiːm/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːm

Noun

stream (plural streams)

1. A small river; a large creek; a body of moving water confined by banks.
   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     Now we plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges over the cold trout-streams, the boards giving back the clatter of our horses' feet: […] .

   • 2013 January, Nancy Langston, “The Fraught History of a Watery World”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 1, page 59:

     European adventurers found themselves within a watery world, a tapestry of streams, channels, wetlands, lakes and lush riparian meadows enriched by floodwaters from the Mississippi River.

2. (sciences, umbrella term) All moving waters.
3. A thin connected passing of a liquid through a lighter gas (e.g. air).

   He poured the milk in a thin stream from the jug to the glass.

4. Current, the force of moving water.

   to swim against the stream

5. Any steady flow or succession of material, such as water, air, radio signal or words.

   Her constant nagging was to him a stream of abuse.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 10, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     With a little manœuvring they contrived to meet on the doorstep which was […] in a boiling stream of passers-by, hurrying business people speeding past in a flurry of fumes and dust in the bright haze.

   • 2011 December 21, Helen Pidd, “Europeans migrate south as continent drifts deeper into crisis”, in the Guardian‎:

     A new stream of migrants is leaving the continent. It threatens to become a torrent if the debt crisis continues to worsen.

6. (figurative) A particular path, channel, division, or way of proceeding.

   Haredi Judaism is a stream of Orthodox Judaism characterized by rejection of modern secular culture.

7. (computing) A source or repository of data that can be read or written only sequentially.

   In the context of computer science, lexical analysis can be defined as the conversion of a stream of characters to a stream of meaningful tokens.

8. Digital data (e.g. music or video) delivered in a continuous manner to a client computer, intended for immediate consumption or playback.
   1. An instance of streaming digital data.
      • 2023 May 3, Courtney Young, “13 Shows to Binge When ‘Succession’ Ends”, in Cosmopolitan‎:

        If your favorite Succession storylines involve the fictional ATN and network drama, give Apple TV’s The Morning Show a stream.

   2. A live stream.
9. (UK, education) A division of a school year by perceived ability.

   All of the bright kids went into the A stream, but I was in the B stream.

10. A train of thought or flow in a conversation or discussion.

    Not to switch streams, but we really need to focus on talking about the economy right now...

Verb

stream (third-person singular simple present streams, present participle streaming, simple past and past participle streamed)

1. (intransitive) To flow in a continuous or steady manner, like a liquid.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     beneath those banks where rivers now stream

   • [1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC:

     When I came to myself I was lying, not in the outer blackness of the Mohune vault, not on a floor of sand; but in a bed of sweet clean linen, and in a little whitewashed room, through the window of which the spring sunlight streamed.

2. (intransitive) To extend; to stretch out with a wavy motion; to float in the wind.

   A flag streams in the wind.

3. (transitive) To discharge in a stream.

   The soldier's wound was streaming blood.

4. (Internet) To push continuous data (e.g. music) from a server to a client computer while it is being used (played) on the client.
5. (Internet) To livestream.
   • 2024 March 1, F1NN5TER, 1:40 from the start, in Coming Out‎, archived from the original on 14 May 2024:

     I did factor in the whole, like, "oh, I wonder if doing streaming, and the money that's kind of attached to it, is the reason I wanted to do this?", like, is it warping my brain? I did think about that. I've streamed for years and it's been my entire life and I've made a lot of money off it, and I wondered if that's what's affecting me and making me want to do this. And it's not.

Further reading

• “stream”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “stream”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “stream”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “stream”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.

Anagrams

• Stamer, ramset, metras, matres, mastre, maters, armets, armest, termas, tamers, trémas, remast, Tamers, ramets, Master, 'maters, master, METARs, tremas, Amster

Etymology

Borrowed from English stream.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /striːm/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: stream

Noun

stream m (plural streams)

1. (computing, Internet) a stream

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

stream m (plural streams)

1. (Internet) stream

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *straum.

Germanic cognates include Old Frisian strām, Old Saxon strōm, Old High German stroum, Old Norse straumr. Extra-Germanic cognates include Ancient Greek ῥεῦμα (rheûma), Polish strumień, Albanian rrymë (“flow, current”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /stræ͜ɑːm/

Noun

strēam m

1. stream
   • late 9th century, translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History

     Đa was on þā tīd Æðelbyrht cyning hāten on Centrīċe, ⁊ mihtiġ: hē hæfde rīċe ōð ġemæro Humbre strēames, sē tōsċēadeð sūðfolce Angelþēode ⁊ nordfolc.

     At that time the powerful Athelbert was king of the kingdom of Kent; his authority extended to the boundary of stream of the Humber, which divides the southern English from the northern English.

2. current