string

string

1. a thin length of cord, twine, fibre, or similar material used for tying, hanging, binding, etc.

2. a tough fibre or cord in a plant

3. Music a tightly stretched wire, cord, etc., found on stringed instruments, such as the violin, guitar, and piano

4. short for bowstring

5. Architect short for stringer (sense 1)

6. Maths linguistics a sequence of symbols or words

7. Physics a one-dimensional entity postulated to be a fundamental component of matter in some theories of particle physics

8. Billiards another word for lag

9. a group of characters that can be treated as a unit by a computer program

10. 

a. violins, violas, cellos, and double basses collectively

b. the section of a symphony orchestra constituted by such instruments

11. composed of stringlike strands woven in a large mesh

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

String

In a stair, an inclined board that supports the end of the steps; also called a stringer.

face string

An outer string, usually of better material or finish than the rough string which it covers; may be part of the actual construction or applied to the face of the supporting member.

outer string

The string at the outer and exposed edge of a stair, away from the wall.

Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture Copyright © 2012, 2002, 1998 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

What does it mean when you dream about string?

Dreaming about string often refers to something that needs to be secured or mended, particularly a relationship or some other situation. There are, however, many idiomatic expressions containing the word “string,” and a dream could be alluding to one of these meanings: “purse strings,” “to string someone along,” “first string,” “no strings attached,” “pull some strings,” etc.

The Dream Encyclopedia, Second Edition © 2009 Visible Ink Press®. All rights reserved.

string

[striŋ]

(computer science)

A set of consecutive, adjacent items of similar type; normally a bit string or a character string.

(engineering)

A piece of pipe, casing, or other down-hole drilling equipment coupled together and lowered into a borehole.

(geology)

A very small vein, either independent or occurring as a branch of a larger vein. Also known as stringer.

(mathematics)

One of the space curves that form a braid.

(mechanics)

A solid body whose length is many times as large as any of its cross-sectional dimensions, and which has no stiffness.

(particle physics)

A proposed structure for elementary particles, consisting of a one-dimensional curve with zero thickness and length typically of the order of the Planck length, 10^-35 m.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

string

string, 1

1. In a stair, an inclined board which supports the end of the steps; also called a stringer.

2. In a lattice roof truss, a horizontal tie.

3. A stringcourse. Also called stringer, stringboard, or face string. For specific types, see closed string, face string, finish string, open string, outer string, rough string, stair string.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

string

(programming)

A sequence of data values, usually bytes, which usually stand for characters (a "character string"). The mapping between values and characters is determined by the character set which is itself specified implcitly or explicitly by the environment in which the string is being interpreted.

The most common character set is ASCII but, since the late 1990s, there has been increased interest in larger character sets such as Unicode where each character is represented by more than eight bits.

Most programming languages consider strings (e.g. "124:shabooya:\n", "hello world") basically distinct from numbers which are typically stored in fixed-length binary or floating-point representation.

A bit string is a sequence of bits.

This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)

string

A set of contiguous alphanumeric characters. Strings are text, such as names, addresses and descriptions. In programming, strings are always quoted; for example, state="New York". The quote at the end of the string is actually the necessary marker. Were it not quoted, the programming logic to determine the end of the text could be extremely complicated in certain situations. See alphanumeric.

Although a string may include numeric digits, they are normally not numbers used for calculation. If they were, they would have to be copied to a numeric structure for an arithmetic operation. Contrast with numeric data. See string literal, string handling, quoted search and account number.

Copyright © 1981-2025 by The Computer Language Company Inc. All Rights reserved. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. All other reproduction is strictly prohibited without permission from the publisher.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

String

 

(1) In vibration theory, a string is a thin, flexible, tightly stretched fiber whose density is uniformly distributed along its length. When the string is excited by, for example, being struck or plucked, it begins executing vibrational motions, in which all parts of the string are displaced in the transverse direction. Any vibration of a string can be represented as the sum of natural harmonic vibrations of the string. The frequencies f of these harmonic vibrations depend on the length l of the string, the cross-sectional area S, the tension Q, the density ρ of the string material, and the conditions of attachment of the ends of the string. For a string fastened to rigid supports, the frequency of the nth harmonic is

where n is a whole number. The displacement distribution at the initial moment—that is, the means by which the string is excited—determines the spectrum of the excited natural vibrations. A string is the simplest distributed-constant vibrational system and is often used to illustrate the oscillations of more complex mechanical, acoustic, and electrical systems.

(2) In music, a string is the source of sound vibrations in a number of musical instruments. The timbre of the sound of a string is determined by the vibrational mode of the string—that is, by the spectrum of the excited natural vibrations. In antiquity, strings were made from tree bark, plant fibers, and animal hairs (primarily horsehairs). In modern musical instruments, steel strings are used for the most part; gut strings, silk strings, and strings made from synthetic fibers (nylon) are used less often. To obtain low tones when the length of the string is limited, the string is made in the form of a thin fiber around which one or two layers of soft metal wire are wound.

Strings are also used in some electroacoustical devices.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.