stream

Meanings

Noun

• A small river; a large creek; a body of moving water confined by banks.
• A thin connected passing of a liquid through a lighter gas (e.g. air).
• Any steady flow or succession of material, such as water, air, radio signal or words.
• All moving waters.
• A source or repository of data that can be read or written only sequentially.
• A particular path, channel, division, or way of proceeding.
• A division of a school year by perceived ability.
• A live stream.

Verb

• To flow in a continuous or steady manner, like a liquid.
• To extend; to stretch out with a wavy motion; to float in the wind.
• To discharge in a stream.
• To push continuous data (e.g. music) from a server to a client computer while it is being used (played) on the client.

Related

Similar words

• beck, brook, burn

Narrower meaning words

• rill
• river

Origin

• From Middle English streem, strem, from Old English strēam, from Proto-Germanic *straumaz ("stream"), from Proto-Indo-European *srowmos ("river"), from Proto-Indo-European *srew- ("to flow"). rheum.
• Cognate with Scots strem, streme, streym, 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 ("stream, flow"), Lithuanian srovė ("current, stream") Polish strumień ("stream"), Welsh ffrwd ("stream, current"), Scottish Gaelic sruth ("stream").