What is "stream"

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.

2. A beam or ray of light. ``Sun streams.''
   --Chaucer.

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.

4. A continued current or course; as, a stream of weather. ``The very stream of his life.''
   --Shak.

5. Current; drift; tendency; series of tending or moving causes; as, the stream of opinions or manners.

   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.

   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.

Stream \Stream\, v. t. To send forth in a current or stream; to cause to flow; to pour; as, his eyes streamed tears.

It may so please that she at length will stream Some dew of grace into my withered heart.
--Spenser.

2. To mark with colors or embroidery in long tracts.

The herald's mantle is streamed with gold.
--Bacon.

3. To unfurl.
--Shak.

To stream the buoy. (Naut.) See under Buoy.

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.

   Beneath those banks where rivers stream.
   --Milton.

2. To pour out, or emit, a stream or streams.

   A thousand suns will stream on thee.
   --Tennyson.

3. To issue in a stream of light; to radiate.

4. To extend; to stretch out with a wavy motion; to float in the wind; as, a flag streams in the wind.

early 13c., "to flow copiously," from stream (n.). Transitive sense "discharge in a stream" is from late 14c. Related: Streamed; streaming. Compare German strömen, Dutch stroomen, Danish strömme, all verbs from nouns.

Old English stream "a course of water," from Proto-Germanic *straumaz (cognates: Old Saxon strom, Old Norse straumr, Danish strøm, Swedish ström, Norwegian straum, Old Frisian stram, Dutch stroom, Old High German stroum, German Strom "current, river"), from PIE root *sreu- "to flow" (see rheum).\n

\nFrom early 12c. as "anything issuing from a source and flowing continuously." Meaning "current in the sea" (as in Gulf Stream) is recorded from late 14c., as is the sense of "steady current in a river." Stream of consciousness in lit crit first recorded 1930, originally in psychology (1855). Stream of thought is from 1890.

n. A small river; a large creek; a body of moving water confined by banks. vb. 1 (context intransitive English) To flow in a continuous or steady manner, like a liquid. 2 To extend; to stretch out with a wavy motion; to float in the wind. 3 (context Internet English) To push continuous data (e.g. music) from a server to a client computer while it is being used (played) on the client.

1. v. 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, teem, pullulate]

4. rain heavily; "Put on your rain coat-- it's pouring outside!" [syn: pour, pelt, rain cats and dogs, rain buckets]

5. flow freely and abundantly; "Tears streamed down her face" [syn: well out]

1. n. a natural body of running water flowing on or under the earth [syn: 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: flow, current]

3. a steady flow (usually from natural causes); "the raft floated downstream on the current"; "he felt a stream of air" [syn: current]

4. the act of flowing or streaming; continuous progression [syn: flow]

5. 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: flow]

A stream is a body of moving water.

Stream or streaming may also refer to:

Stream is the eighth album by Fischer-Z. The album contains the single "Protection", which explored the dark area of child exploitation. Following the album, John Watts concentrated on his solo career again, making this the last album by Fischer-Z, before its slight revival again in 2002.

In type theory and functional programming, a stream is a potentially infinite analog of a list, given by the coinductive definition:

Generating and computing with streams requires lazy evaluation, either implicitly in a lazily evaluated language or by creating and forcing thunks in an eager language. In total languages they must be defined as codata and can be iterated over using (guarded) corecursion.

In computer science, a stream is a sequence of data elements made available over time. A stream can be thought of as items on a conveyor belt being processed one at a time rather than in large batches

Streams are processed differently from batch data – normal functions cannot operate on streams as a whole, as they have potentially unlimited data, and formally, streams are codata (potentially unlimited), not data (which is finite). Functions that operate on a stream, producing another stream, are known as filters, and can be connected in pipelines, analogously to function composition. Filters may operate on one item of a stream at a time, or may base an item of output on multiple items of input, such as a moving average.

A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and banks. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, crick, ghyll, gill, kill, lick, mill race, race, rill, river, syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, run, or runnel.

Streams are important as conduits in the water cycle, instruments in groundwater recharge, and corridors for fish and wildlife migration. The biological habitat in the immediate vicinity of a stream is called a riparian zone. Given the status of the ongoing Holocene extinction, streams play an important corridor role in connecting fragmented habitats and thus in conserving biodiversity. The study of streams and waterways in general is known as surface hydrology and is a core element of environmental geography.