streak
/stɹiːk/ noun, verb
Forms streaks streaking streaked
- noun An irregular line, as is left from smearing or motion. “The picture I took out the car window had streaks.”
- noun A band, line or stripe. “A streak of light on the horizon.”
- noun A continuous series of like events. “I hope I can keep up this streak of accomplishments.”
- noun (social media, Internet) A measure of activity that tracks how many consecutive days a certain interaction with another user or a service has taken place, a form of gamification to drive user engagement.
- noun (figurative) A consistent facet of somebody's personality. “a mean streak”
- noun A tendency or characteristic, but not a dominant or pervasive one. “She's a quiet, bookish person, but she has a rebellious streak.”
- noun (geology) The color of the powder of a mineral, so called, because a simple field test for a mineral is to streak it against unglazed white porcelain.
- noun (biology) A moth of the family Geometridae, Chesias legatella.
- verb (intransitive) To have or obtain streaks. “If you clean a window in direct sunlight, it will streak.”
- verb (intransitive) To run quickly.
- verb (intransitive) To run naked in public. “It was a pleasant game until some guy went streaking across the field.”
- verb (intransitive) To move very swiftly.
- verb (transitive) To create streaks upon. “You will streak a window by cleaning it in direct sunlight.”
- verb (obsolete, UK, Scotland) To stretch; to extend; hence, to lay out, as a dead body.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English streke, from Old English strica, from Proto-Germanic *strikiz, from Proto-Indo-European *streyg- (“line”). Related to North Frisian strijck, Old Saxon striki, Middle Low German streke, Low German streek, Danish streg, Swedish streck, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk strek, Icelandic stryk, strykr, Dutch streek, Afrikaans streek, Old High German strih, German Strich, Gothic 𐍃𐍄𐍂𐌹𐌺𐍃 (striks).
Webster’s 1913
- verb To stretch; to extend; hence, to lay out, as a dead body. [Obs.
- noun A line or long mark of a different color from the ground; a stripe; a vein.
- noun A strake.
- verb To form streaks or stripes in or on; to stripe; to variegate with lines of a different color, or of different colors.
Etymology [Cf. Stretch, Streek.]
Etymology [OE. streke; akin to D. streek a line, stroke, G. strich, AS. strica, Sw. strek, Dan. streg, Goth. stricks, and E. strike, stroke. See Strike, Stroke, n., and cf. Strake.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “streak”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details