From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
stream
n 1: a natural body of running water flowing on or under the
earth [syn: stream, watercourse]
2: dominant course (suggestive of running water) of successive
events or ideas; "two streams of development run through
American history"; "stream of consciousness"; "the flow of
thought"; "the current of history" [syn: stream, flow,
current]
3: the act of flowing or streaming; continuous progression [syn:
flow, stream]
4: something that resembles a flowing stream in moving
continuously; "a stream of people emptied from the terminal";
"the museum had planned carefully for the flow of visitors"
[syn: stream, flow]
5: a steady flow of a fluid (usually from natural causes); "the
raft floated downstream on the current"; "he felt a stream of
air"; "the hose ejected a stream of water" [syn: current,
stream]
v 1: to extend, wave or float outward, as if in the wind; "their
manes streamed like stiff black pennants in the wind"
2: exude profusely; "She was streaming with sweat"; "His nose
streamed blood"
3: move in large numbers; "people were pouring out of the
theater"; "beggars pullulated in the plaza" [syn: pour,
swarm, stream, teem, pullulate]
4: rain heavily; "Put on your rain coat-- it's pouring outside!"
[syn: pour, pelt, stream, rain cats and dogs, {rain
buckets}]
5: flow freely and abundantly; "Tears streamed down her face"
[syn: stream, well out]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Stream \Stream\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Streamed; p. pr. & vb. n.
Streaming.]
1. To issue or flow in a stream; to flow freely or in a
current, as a fluid or whatever is likened to fluids; as,
tears streamed from her eyes.
[1913 Webster]
Beneath those banks where rivers stream. --Milton.
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2. To pour out, or emit, a stream or streams.
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A thousand suns will stream on thee. --Tennyson.
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3. To issue in a stream of light; to radiate.
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4. To extend; to stretch out with a wavy motion; to float in
the wind; as, a flag streams in the wind.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Stream \Stream\ (str[=e]m), n. [AS. stre['a]m; akin to OFries.
str[=a]m, OS. str[=o]m, D. stroom, G. strom, OHG. stroum,
str[=u]m, Dan. & Sw. str["o]m, Icel. straumr, Ir. sroth,
Lith. srove, Russ. struia, Gr. "ry`sis a flowing, "rei^n to
flow, Skr. sru. [root]174. Cf. Catarrh, Diarrhea,
Rheum, Rhythm.]
1. A current of water or other fluid; a liquid flowing
continuously in a line or course, either on the earth, as
a river, brook, etc., or from a vessel, reservoir, or
fountain; specifically, any course of running water; as,
many streams are blended in the Mississippi; gas and steam
came from the earth in streams; a stream of molten lead
from a furnace; a stream of lava from a volcano.
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2. A beam or ray of light. "Sun streams." --Chaucer.
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3. Anything issuing or moving with continued succession of
parts; as, a stream of words; a stream of sand. "The
stream of beneficence." --Atterbury. "The stream of
emigration." --Macaulay.
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4. A continued current or course; as, a stream of weather.
"The very stream of his life." --Shak.
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5. Current; drift; tendency; series of tending or moving
causes; as, the stream of opinions or manners.
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Gulf stream. See under Gulf.
Stream anchor, Stream cable. (Naut.) See under Anchor,
and Cable.
Stream ice, blocks of ice floating in a mass together in
some definite direction.
Stream tin, particles or masses of tin ore found in
alluvial ground; -- so called because a stream of water is
the principal agent used in separating the ore from the
sand and gravel.
Stream works (Cornish Mining), a place where an alluvial
deposit of tin ore is worked. --Ure.
To float with the stream, figuratively, to drift with the
current of opinion, custom, etc., so as not to oppose or
check it.
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Syn: Current; flow; rush; tide; course.
Usage: Stream, Current. These words are often properly
interchangeable; but stream is the broader word,
denoting a prevailing onward course. The stream of the
Mississippi rolls steadily on to the Gulf of Mexico,
but there are reflex currents in it which run for a
while in a contrary direction.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Stream \Stream\, v. t.
To send forth in a current or stream; to cause to flow; to
pour; as, his eyes streamed tears.
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It may so please that she at length will stream
Some dew of grace into my withered heart. --Spenser.
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2. To mark with colors or embroidery in long tracts.
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The herald's mantle is streamed with gold. --Bacon.
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3. To unfurl. --Shak.
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To stream the buoy. (Naut.) See under Buoy.
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From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008) [foldoc]:
STREAM
["STREAM: A Scheme Language for Formally Describing Digital
Circuits", C.D. Kloos in PARLE: Parallel Architectures and
Languages Europe, LNCS 259, Springer 1987].
(1995-01-30)
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008) [foldoc]:
stream
1. <communications> An abstraction referring to any flow of
data from a source (or sender, producer) to a single sink (or
receiver, consumer). A stream usually flows through a channel
of some kind, as opposed to packets which may be addressed
and routed independently, possibly to multiple recipients.
Streams usually require some mechanism for establishing a
channel or a "connection" between the sender and receiver.
2. <programming> In the C language's buffered input/ouput
library functions, a stream is associated with a file or
device which has been opened using fopen. Characters may be
read from (written to) a stream without knowing their actual
source (destination) and buffering is provided transparently
by the library routines.
3. <operating system> Confusingly, Sun have called their
modular device driver mechanism "STREAMS".
4. <operating system> In IBM's AIX operating system, a
stream is a full-duplex processing and data transfer path
between a driver in kernel space and a process in {user
space}.
[IBM AIX 3.2 Communication Programming Concepts,
SC23-2206-03].
5. <communications> streaming.
6. <programming> lazy list.
(1996-11-06)