string

Round Ormond's knee thou tiest the mystic string.
(countable) A thread

1700, Matthew Prior, Carmen Seculare. for the Year 1700

(countable) A long, thin and flexible structure made from threads twisted together.

(uncountable) Such a structure considered as a substance.

Such a structure considered as a substance.

a violinstring

a bowstring

(countable) Any similar long, thin and flexible object.

(music) A segment of wire (typically made of plastic or metal) or other material used as vibrating element on a musical instrument.

Any similar long, thin and flexible object.

(sports) A length of nylon or other material on the head of a racquet.

a string of shells or beads

a string of sausages

a string of islands

1776, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: […] W[illiam] Strahan; and T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC:

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.

The string of spittle dangling from his chin was most unattractive

(countable) A cohesive substance taking the form of a string.

A cohesive substance taking the form of a string.

In 1933, disgusted and discouraged after a string of commercial failures, Clara quit the film business forever. She was twenty-six.

2012, Christoper Zara, Tortured Artists: From Picasso and Monroe to Warhol and Winehouse, the Twisted Secrets of the World's Most Creative Minds, part 1, chapter 1, 27:

a string of successes

(countable) A series of items or events.

(countable) The members of a sports team or squad regarded as most likely to achieve success. (Perhaps metaphorical as the "strings" that hold the squad together.) Often first string, second string etc.

(countable) In various games and competitions, a certain number of turns at play, of rounds, etc.

(collective) A drove of horses, or a group of racehorses kept by one owner or at one stable.

(countable, programming) An ordered sequence of text characters stored consecutively in memory and capable of being processed as a single entity.

(music, metonymically, countable) A stringed instrument.

(music, usually in the plural) The stringed instruments as a section of an orchestra, especially those played by a bow, or the persons playing those instruments.

no strings attached

But he added: "The RDG offer contains more strings than a harp, including some which have never previously been discussed. It also omits significant points that had previously been negotiated."

2022 December 14, Mel Holley, “Network News: Strikes go on as RMT rejects RDG's "detrimental" offer”, in RAIL, number 972, page 8:

(figurative, in the plural) The conditions and limitations in a contract collectively.

(countable, physics) A tiny one-dimensional string-like entity, the main object of study in string theory, a branch of theoretical physics.

(billiards) Part of the game 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.

(historical, billiards) The buttons strung on a wire by which the score is kept.

(billiards, by extension) The points made in a game of billiards.

(billiards, pool) 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; also called the string line.

Many of those that pretend to be great Rabbies in these studies have scarce saluted them from the strings, and the titlepage.

1641 May, John Milton, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England: And the Cavvses that hitherto have Hindred it; republished as Will Taliaferro Hale, editor, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England (Yale Studies in English; LIV), New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1916, →OCLC:

A strip, as of leather, by which the covers of a book are held together.

Duckweed putteth forth a little string into the water, from the bottom.

1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:

(archaic) A fibre, as of a plant; a little fibrous root.

A fibre, as of a plant; a little fibrous root.

The string of his tongue was loosed.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Mark 7:35:

(archaic) A nerve or tendon of an animal body.

(shipbuilding) An inside range of ceiling planks, corresponding to the sheer strake on the outside and bolted to it.

the strings of beans

(botany) The tough fibrous substance that unites the valves of the pericarp of leguminous plants.

a single miner is often found pursuing his solitary labours at a string or thin vein of ore

1833, Thomas Sopwith, An Account of the Mining Districts of Alston Moor, Weardale […] :

(mining) A small, filamentous ramification of a metallic vein.

They were turning tricks, doing drugs, and generally little better off than they had been before, except that they were keeping more of their money. But they seemed lonely, too, without the company of their pimp and the rest of his string.

2006, Steve Niles, Jeff Mariotte, 30 Days of Night: Rumors of the Undead, page 307:

Synonym of stable (“group of prostitutes managed by one pimp”)

stable

group of prostitutes managed by one pimp

(oil industry) A column of drill pipe that transmits drilling fluid (via the mud pumps) and torque (via the kelly drive or top drive) to the drill bit.

en-noun

string (countable and uncountable, plural strings)

Tok Pisin: string

→ Dutch: string

→ Finnish: stringit

→ French: string

→ German: String

desc

מחרוז//מַחְרֹזֶת

→ Hebrew: מחרוז／מַחְרֹזֶת (makhrózet) (semantic loan)

→ Hebrew: מחרוז／מַחְרֹזֶת (makhrózet) (semantic loan)

→ Japanese: ストリング (sutoringu)

→ Norwegian Bokmål: streng (semantic loan)

→ Norwegian Bokmål: streng (semantic loan)

→ Norwegian Nynorsk: streng (semantic loan)

→ Norwegian Nynorsk: streng (semantic loan)

→ Polish: stringi

→ Portuguese: estrém; string

→ Swedish: string

varg

long, thin structure made from twisted threads

弦

any similar long, thin and flexible object

弓弦

ゆづる, yuzuru, ゆみづる, yumizuru, ゆんづる, yunzuru

streng

cohesive substance in the form of a string

弦

physics: subject of study in string theory

From Middle English string, streng, strynge, from Old English strenġ, from Proto-West Germanic *strangi, from Proto-Germanic *strangiz (“string”), from Proto-Indo-European *strengʰ- (“rope, cord, strand; to tighten”).
Cognate with Scots string (“string”), Dutch streng (“cord, strand”), Low German strenge (“strand, cord, rope”), German Strang (“strand, cord, rope”), Danish streng (“string”), Swedish sträng (“string, cord, wire”), Icelandic strengur (“string”), Latvian stringt (“to be tight, wither”), Latin stringō (“I tighten”), Ancient Greek στραγγαλόομαι (strangalóomai, “to strangle”), from στραγγάλη (strangálē, “halter”), Ancient Greek στραγγός (strangós, “tied together, entangled, twisted”).

cog

Low German strenge (“strand, cord, rope”)

στραγγαλόομαι


string

You can string these beads on to this cord to make a colorful necklace.

(transitive) To put (items) on a string.

It is difficult to string a tennis racket properly.

(transitive) To put strings on (something).

(intransitive) To form into a string or strings, as a substance which is stretched, or people who are moving along, etc.

(intransitive, billiards) To drive the ball against the end of the table and back, in order to determine which player is to open the game.

To be honest, you'd be better off trying to string a Skylark as a Richard's Pipit rather than as a Pectoral Sandpiper.

1980, Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book, page 81:

For instance he might see a White-eared Honeyeater, a not uncommon bird in the heathy areas at Bunyip, but in his excitement to call it, something in his brain scrambled and came out as: `White-cheeked Honeyeater!' White-cheeked Honeyeater is an absolute stonking crippler in Victoria, but Stu was not actually trying to string a rarity, he'd just got such a flood of new information swirling around his brain that sometimes it got jumbled up.

2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 67:

(birdwatching) To deliberately state that a certain bird is present when it is not; to knowingly mislead other birders about the occurrence of a bird, especially a rarity; to misidentify a common bird as a rare species.

en-verb

string (third-person singular simple present strings, present participle stringing, simple past strung or (obsolete or nonstandard) strang, past participle strung)

strings (present singular third-person)
stringing (participle present)
strung (past)
strang (nonstandard obsolete past)
strung (participle past)

From Middle English stryngen, strengen, from the noun (see above).