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strum
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
strum
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
guitar
▪ The hands of the Mariarchi players strum their guitars.
▪ Budd, who has been strumming his acoustic guitar through the Midwest, writes introspective songs with a witty, sincere touch.
▪ There he was at the side of the stage, looking pretty, inconsequentially strumming his guitar.
▪ I could see my father strumming the guitar, plucking our ancient, mournful history from the hollowness of its wooden frame.
▪ As he sang, he strummed a guitar.
▪ She was seated on the ground, leaning against a wall, strumming a guitar.
▪ Why are so many of the tracks by cute white boys strumming guitars?
▪ He re-appears, gently strumming his 40-year-old acoustic guitar in the midst of the audience and proceeds to busk around the crowd!
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Budd, who has been strumming his acoustic guitar through the Midwest, writes introspective songs with a witty, sincere touch.
▪ Mike Dawson was sitting at a dead computer, strumming the keyboard and offering a toothy smile to an invisible audience.
▪ Mulcahey strummed his banjo and tapped the castanet again.
▪ One of the minstrels strummed his banjo.
▪ The guitar player strummed along respectfully.
▪ When we first started strumming, there was definitely a real affinity with the feel, so who knows?
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Strum

Strum \Strum\, v. t. & i. [imp. & p. p. Strummed; p. pr. & vb. n. Strumming.] [Probably of imitative origin. Cf. Thrum.] To play on an instrument of music, or as on an instrument, in an unskillful or noisy way; to thrum; as, to strum a piano.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
strum

1775, possibly imitative of the sound of running the fingers across the strings of a musical instrument. Related: Strummed; strumming. As a noun from 1793.

Wiktionary
strum

n. 1 The sound made by playing various strings of a stringed instrument simultaneously. 2 The act of strumming. vb. To play a guitar or other stringed instrument using various strings simultaneously.

WordNet
strum
  1. n. sound of strumming; "the strum of a guitar"

  2. [also: strumming, strummed]

strum
  1. v. sound the strings of (a string instrument); "strum a guitar" [syn: thrum]

  2. [also: strumming, strummed]

Gazetteer
Strum, WI -- U.S. village in Wisconsin
Population (2000): 1001
Housing Units (2000): 434
Land area (2000): 1.087200 sq. miles (2.815834 sq. km)
Water area (2000): 0.082129 sq. miles (0.212713 sq. km)
Total area (2000): 1.169329 sq. miles (3.028547 sq. km)
FIPS code: 77825
Located within: Wisconsin (WI), FIPS 55
Location: 44.550388 N, 91.391904 W
ZIP Codes (1990): 54770
Note: some ZIP codes may be omitted esp. for suburbs.
Headwords:
Strum, WI
Strum
Wikipedia
Strum

In music, strumming is a way of playing a stringed instrument such as a guitar. A strum or stroke is a sweeping action where a fingernail or plectrum brushes past several strings in order to set them all into motion and thereby play a chord. Strums are executed by the dominant hand, while the other hand holds down notes on the fretboard. Strums are contrasted with plucking, as a means of activating strings into audible vibration, because in plucking, only one string is activated by a surface at a time. A hand-held pick or plectrum can only be used to pluck one string at a time, but multiple strings can be strummed by one. Plucking multiple strings simultaneously requires a fingerstyle or fingerpick technique.

A strumming pattern or strum is a preset pattern used by a rhythm guitar. Compare with pattern picking, strumming patterns may be indicated through notation, tablature, up and down arrows, or slashes. For example, a pattern in common time or 4/4 consisting of alternating down and up eight note strokes may be written:

/\/\/\/\
Strum (disambiguation)

A strum is the act of brushing one's fingers over the strings of a string instrument.

Strum may also refer to:

  • Shirley Strum Kenny (born 1935), President of the State University of New York
  • Strum, Albania, a village in Roskovec municipality, Fier County, Albania
  • Strum, Wisconsin, United States
  • Strum (grape), a red wine grape
  • Strum (surname), a surname
Strum (surname)

Strum is a surname, and may refer to:

  • Charles Strum (born 1948), American journalist
  • Dana Strum (born 1958), American bass guitarist
  • Gladys Strum (1906-2005), Canadian politician
  • Hilde Strum (20th century), Austrian luger
  • Louie Willard Strum (1890-1954), American lawyer

Usage examples of "strum".

His breath left him in a thunderous rush and she held the phone tight to her ear, her lips brushing the mouthpiece as she imagined his orgasm quivering through her too, through muscles already exhausted, nerves already strummed and sated.

RETURNING to his desk, the magnate sat down and began a new strumming.

Besides fatting, picking his nose, and strumming, his other passion in life was eggy-weggies and Marmite soldiers.

I sat on the porch strumming some chords of my favorite John Prine stuff.

They walked in silence, letting their collective sensorium detect the latent caressing strum of hills and gnarled, stubby trees.

The persuasive titillation of his mouth and tongue blunted her will to resist, and though she relished each blissful stroke that strummed across the gutstrings of her being, she strove desperately to gather the scattered fragments of her wits.

A small gray-furred boy, a Houdan, was strumming a banjo at one of the piers.

The idiot rode strumming his banjo, playing over and over the last two tunes he had heard, regaling the countryside alternately with the national anthems of Dixie and France.

The music grew as the musicians lining the avenues strummed their guitars and blew into their horns, and the red flags of Reec were everywhere, hanging down from apartment windows and held aloft by proud teenagers.

I realized that all the Strums were listening in to the dialogue and probably my private thoughts as well, and that I was showing reprehensible, almost buglike uncertainty.

Outspan was very embarrassed up in his bedroom trying to strum along to the Motown time.

Pointing the bottleneck of the instrument at the rolling molecular destabilizer, he strummed the strings fast and hard.

Mishka had opened the clavichord and was strumming on it with one finger.

If it ignites, we'll be strumming harps with Corey Ford and the Boxman.

Tha-tha gave the decapod equivalent of a nod: a brushlike strum of encouragement.