What is "thread"

Thread \Thread\ (thr[e^]d), n. [OE. threed, [thorn]red, AS. [thorn]r[=ae]d; akin to D. draad, G. draht wire, thread, OHG. dr[=a]t, Icel. [thorn]r[=a][eth]r a thread, Sw. tr[*a]d, Dan. traad, and AS. [thorn]r[=a]wan to twist. See Throw, and cf. Third.]

1. A very small twist of flax, wool, cotton, silk, or other fibrous substance, drawn out to considerable length; a compound cord consisting of two or more single yarns doubled, or joined together, and twisted; also, one fiber of a cord composed of multiple fibers.

2. A filament of any substance, as of glass, gold or silver; a filamentous part of an object, such as a flower; a component fiber of any or of any fibrous substance, as of bark.

3. The prominent part of the spiral of a screw or nut; the rib. See Screw, n., 1.

4. (Fig.) Something continued in a long course or tenor; a recurrent theme or related sequence of events in a larger story; as the thread of a story, or of life, or of a discourse.
   --Bp. Burnet.

5. Fig.: Composition; quality; fineness. [Obs.]

   A neat courtier, Of a most elegant thread.
   --B. Jonson.

6. (Computers) A related sequence of instructions or actions within a program that runs at least in part independent of other actions within the program; -- such threads are capable of being executed only in oprating systems permittnig multitasking.

7. (Computers) A sequence of messages posted to an on-line newsgroup or discussion group, dealing with the same topic; -- messages in such a thread typically refer to a previous posting, thus allowing their identification as part of the thread. Some news-reading programs allow a user to follow a single such thread independent of the other postings to that newsgroup.

   Air thread, the fine white filaments which are seen floating in the air in summer, the production of spiders; gossamer.

   Thread and thrum, the good and bad together. [Obs.]
   --Shak.

   Thread cell (Zo["o]l.), a lasso cell. See under Lasso.

   Thread herring (Zo["o]l.), the gizzard shad. See under Gizzard.

   Thread lace, lace made of linen thread.

   Thread needle, a game in which children stand in a row, joining hands, and in which the outer one, still holding his neighbor, runs between the others; -- called also thread the needle.

Thread \Thread\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Threaded; p. pr. & vb. n. Threading.]

1. To pass a thread through the eye of; as, to thread a needle.

2. To pass or pierce through as a narrow way; also, to effect or make, as one's way, through or between obstacles; to thrid.

   Heavy trading ships . . . threading the Bosphorus.
   --Mitford.

   They would not thread the gates.
   --Shak.

3. To form a thread, or spiral rib, on or in; as, to thread a screw or nut.

Old English þræd "fine cord, especially when twisted" (related to þrawan "to twist"), from Proto-Germanic *thredu- "twisted yarn" (cognates: Old Saxon thrad, Old Frisian thred, Middle Dutch draet, Dutch draad, Old High German drat, German Draht, Old Norse þraðr), literally "twisted," from suffixed form of PIE root *tere- (1) "to rub, rub by turning, turn" (see throw (v.)). Meaning "spiral ridge of a screw" is from 1670s. Threads, slang for "clothes" is 1926, American English.\n\nThe silk line, as spun by the worm, is about the 5000th part of an inch thick; but a spider's line is perhaps six times finer, or only the 30,000th part of an inch in diameter, insomuch, that a single pound of this attenuated substance might be sufficient to encompass our globe.

[John Leslie, "Elements of Natural Philosophy," Edinburgh, 1823]

"to put thread through a needle," mid-14c., from thread (n.); in reference to film cameras from 1913. The dancing move called thread the needle is attested from 1844. Related: Threaded; threading.

n. A long, thin and flexible form of material, generally with a round cross-section, used in sewing, weave or in the construction of string. vb. 1 (context transitive English) To put thread through. 2 (context transitive English) To pass (through a narrow constriction or around a series of obstacles). 3 To screw on, to fit the #Nouns of a nut on a bolt

1. n. a fine cord of twisted fibers (of cotton or silk or wool or nylon etc.) used in sewing and weaving [syn: yarn]

2. any long object resembling a thin line; "a mere ribbon of land"; "the lighted ribbon of traffic"; "from the air the road was a gray thread"; "a thread of smoke climbed upward" [syn: ribbon]

3. the connections that link the various parts of an event or argument together; "I couldn't follow his train of thought"; "he lost the thread of his argument" [syn: train of thought]

4. the raised helical rib going around a screw [syn: screw thread]

1. v. to move or cause to move in a sinuous, spiral, or circular course; "the river winds through the hills"; "the path meanders through the vineyards"; "sometimes, the gout wanders through the entire body" [syn: weave, wind, meander, wander]

2. pass a thread through; "thread a needle"

3. remove facial hair by tying a fine string around it and pulling at the string; "She had her eyebrows threaded"

4. pass through or into; "thread tape"; "thread film"

5. thread on or as if on a string; "string pearls on a string"; "the child drew glass beads on a string"; "thread dried cranberries" [syn: string, draw]

Thread or threads may refer to:

• Thread (yarn), a kind of thin yarn used for sewing
• Thread (unit of measurement), a cotton yarn measure
• Screw thread, a spiral ridge on a cylindrical fastener

Thread is a type of yarn used for sewing.

In computer science, a thread of execution is the smallest sequence of programmed instructions that can be managed independently by a scheduler, which is typically a part of the operating system. The implementation of threads and processes differs between operating systems, but in most cases a thread is a component of a process. Multiple threads can exist within one process, executing concurrently and sharing resources such as memory, while different processes do not share these resources. In particular, the threads of a process share its executable code and the values of its variables at any given time.

Systems with a single processor generally implement multithreading by time slicing: the central processing unit (CPU) switches between different software threads. This context switching generally happens very often and rapidly enough that users perceive the threads or tasks as running in parallel. On a multiprocessor or multi-core system, multiple threads can execute in parallel, with every processor or core executing a separate thread simultaneously; on a processor or core with hardware threads, separate software threads can also be executed concurrently by separate hardware threads.

Threads made an early appearance in OS/360 Multiprogramming with a Variable Number of Tasks (MVT) in 1967, in which context they were called "tasks". The term "thread" has been attributed to Victor A. Vyssotsky. Process schedulers of many modern operating systems directly support both time-sliced and multiprocessor threading, and the operating system kernel allows programmers to manipulate threads by exposing required functionality through the system call interface. Some threading implementations are called kernel threads, whereas light-weight processes (LWP) are a specific type of kernel thread that share the same state and information. Furthermore, programs can have user-space threads when threading with timers, signals, or other methods to interrupt their own execution, performing a sort of ad hoc time slicing.

Thread is an IPv6-based, closed-documentation (paid membership required for access to specifications) royalty-free networking protocol for Internet of Things (IoT) "smart" home automation devices to communicate on a local wireless mesh network.

In July 2014, the "Thread Group" alliance was announced, which today is a working group with the companies Nest Labs (a subsidiary of Alphabet/ Google), Samsung, ARM Holdings, Qualcomm, NXP Semiconductors/ Freescale, Silicon Labs, Big Ass Solutions, Somfy, OSRAM, Tyco International, and the lock company Yale in an attempt to have Thread become the industry standard by providing Thread certification for products.

Thread uses 6LoWPAN, which in turn uses the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless protocol with mesh communication, as does ZigBee and other systems. Thread however is IP-addressable, with cloud access and AES encryption. It currently supports up to 250 devices in one local network mesh.

An "AS IS" BSD licensed free and open-source implementation of Thread (called "OpenThread") has also been released by Nest.