different between flock vs string

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /fl?k/
• (US) IPA^(key): /fl?k/
• Rhymes: -?k

Etymology 1

From Middle English flock (“flock”), from Old English flocc (“flock, company, troop”), from Proto-Germanic *flukkaz, *flakka- (“crowd, troop”). Cognate with Middle Low German vlocke (“crowd, flock”), Old Norse flokkr (“crowd, troop, band, flock”). Perhaps related to Old English folc (“crowd, troop, band”). More at folk.

Noun

flock (plural flocks)

1. A number of birds together in a group, such as those gathered together for the purpose of migration.
2. A large number of animals associated together in a group; commonly used of various farmed animals, such as sheep and goats, but applied to a wide variety of animals.
3. Those served by a particular pastor or shepherd.
4. A large number of people.

   Synonym: congregation

5. (Christianity) A religious congregation.

   Synonym: congregation

Synonyms

(large number of people):

• bunch, gaggle, horde, host, legion, litter, nest, rabble, swarm, throng, wake

Translations

Verb

flock (third-person singular simple present flocks, present participle flocking, simple past and past participle flocked)

1. (intransitive) To congregate in or head towards a place in large numbers.

   People flocked to the cinema to see the new film.

   • What place the gods for our repose assigned.
     Friends daily flock; and scarce the kindly spring
     Began to clothe the ground

2. (transitive, obsolete) To flock to; to crowd.
   • 1609, Taylor

     Good fellows, trooping, flocked me so.

3. To treat a pool with chemicals to remove suspended particles.

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English flok (“tuft of wool”), from Old French floc (“tuft of wool”), from Late Latin floccus (“tuft of wool”), probably from Frankish *flokko (“down, wool, flock”), from Proto-Germanic *flukk?n-, *flukkan-, *fluks?n- (“down, flock”), from Proto-Indo-European *plewk- (“hair, fibres, tuft”). Cognate with Old High German flocko (“down”), Middle Dutch vlocke (“flock”), Norwegian dialectal flugsa (“snowflake”). Non-Germanic cognates include Albanian flokë (“hair”).

Noun

flock (countable and uncountable, plural flocks)

1. Coarse tufts of wool or cotton used in bedding.
2. A lock of wool or hair.
3. Very fine sifted woollen refuse, especially that from shearing the nap of cloths, formerly used as a coating for wallpaper to give it a velvety or clothlike appearance; also, the dust of vegetable fibre used for a similar purpose.

   • There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.

Translations

Verb

flock (third-person singular simple present flocks, present participle flocking, simple past and past participle flocked)

1. (transitive) To coat a surface with dense fibers or particles; especially, to create a dense arrangement of fibers with a desired nap.

Translations

Derived terms

• flocked

See also

• Appendix:English collective nouns

Swedish

Etymology

From Old Swedish flokker, flukker, from Old Norse flokkr, from Proto-Germanic *flukkaz. Cognate with Faroese flokkur, Icelandic flokkur, Norwegian flokk, and Danish flok.

Pronunciation

Noun

flock c

1. flock; a group of people or animals
2. murder of crows

Declension

Related terms

• flockas

English

Etymology

From Middle English string, streng, strynge, from Old English streng (“string, cord, rope; tackle, rigging; ligament, ligature, sinew; line, lineage”), from Proto-Germanic *strangiz (“string”), from Proto-Indo-European *streng?- (“rope, cord, strand; to tighten”). Cognate with Scots string (“string”), Dutch streng (“cord, strand”), Low German strenge (“strand, cord, rope”), German Strang (“strand, cord, rope”), Danish streng (“string”), Swedish sträng (“string, cord, wire”), Icelandic strengur (“string”), Latvian stringt (“to be tight, wither”), Latin string? (“I tighten”), Ancient Greek ????????????? (strangalóomai, “to strangle”), from ????????? (strangál?, “halter”), Ancient Greek ???????? (strangós, “tied together, entangled, twisted”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st???/
• Hyphenation: string
• Rhymes: -??

Noun

string (countable and uncountable, plural strings)

1. (countable) A long, thin and flexible structure made from threads twisted together.

   Synonyms: cord, rope, line; see also Thesaurus:string

   • 1700, Matthew Prior, Carmen Seculare. for the Year 1700

     Round Ormond's knee thou tiest the mystic string.

2. (uncountable) Such a structure considered as a substance.

   Synonyms: cord, rope, twine

3. (countable) Any similar long, thin and flexible object.
   1. (music) A length of wire or other material used as vibrating element on a musical instrument.

   2. (sports) A length of nylon or other material on the head of a racquet.
4. A thread or cord on which a number of objects or parts are strung or arranged in close and orderly succession; hence, a line or series of things arranged on a thread, or as if so arranged.

   • a string of islands

5. (countable) A cohesive substance taking the form of a string.

6. (countable) A series of items or events.

   Synonyms: sequence, series

   • 2012, Christoper Zara, Tortured Artists: From Picasso and Monroe to Warhol and Winehouse, the Twisted Secrets of the World's Most Creative Minds, part 1, chapter 1, 27:

     In 1933, disgusted and discouraged after a string of commercial failures, Clara quit the film business forever. She was twenty-six.

7. (countable) The members of a sports team or squad regarded as most likely to achieve success. (Perhaps metaphorical as the "strings" that hold the squad together.) Often first string, second string etc.
8. (countable) In various games and competitions, a certain number of turns at play, of rounds, etc.
9. (collective) A drove of horses, or a group of racehorses kept by one owner or at one stable.
10. (countable, programming) An ordered sequence of text characters stored consecutively in memory and capable of being processed as a single entity.
11. (music, metonymically, countable) A stringed instrument.
12. (music, usually in the plural) The stringed instruments as a section of an orchestra, especially those played by a bow, or the persons playing those instruments.

    Synonym: string section

13. (figuratively, in the plural) The conditions and limitations in a contract collectively.

    Synonyms: conditions, provisions

14. (countable, physics) The main object of study in string theory, a branch of theoretical physics.
15. (slang) Cannabis or marijuana.
16. (billiards) Part of the game of billiards, where the order of the play is determined by testing who can get a ball closest to the bottom rail by shooting it onto the end rail.
17. (historical, billiards) The buttons strung on a wire by which the score is kept.
18. (billiards, by extension) The points made in a game of billiards.
19. (billiards, pool) The line from behind and over which the cue ball must be played after being out of play, as by being pocketed or knocked off the table; also called the string line.
20. A strip, as of leather, by which the covers of a book are held together.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Milton to this entry?)

21. (archaic) A fibre, as of a plant; a little fibrous root.
22. (archaic) A nerve or tendon of an animal body.

    • The string of his tongue was loosed.

23. (shipbuilding) An inside range of ceiling planks, corresponding to the sheer strake on the outside and bolted to it.
24. (botany) The tough fibrous substance that unites the valves of the pericarp of leguminous plants.

25. (mining) A small, filamentous ramification of a metallic vein.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Ure to this entry?)

26. (architecture) A stringcourse.
27. (dated, slang) A hoax; a fake story.
28. Synonym of stable (“group of prostitutes managed by one pimp”)
    • 2006, Steve Niles, Jeff Mariotte, 30 Days of Night: Rumors of the Undead (page 307)

      They were turning tricks, doing drugs, and generally little better off than they had been before, except that they were keeping more of their money. But they seemed lonely, too, without the company of their pimp and the rest of his string.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• Portuguese: estrém

Translations

Verb

string (third-person singular simple present strings, present participle stringing, simple past strung or (obsolete or nonstandard) strang, past participle strung)

1. (transitive) To put (items) on a string.

2. (transitive) To put strings on (something).

3. (intransitive) To form into a string or strings, as a substance which is stretched, or people who are moving along, etc.
4. (intransitive, billiards) To drive the ball against the end of the table and back, in order to determine which player is to open the game.
5. (birdwatching) To deliberately state that a certain bird is present when it is not; to knowingly mislead other birders about the occurrence of a bird, especially a rarity; to misidentify a common bird as a rare species.

Synonyms

• (put on a string): thread
• (put strings on): lace

Derived terms

• stringer
• stringified
• stringifier
• stringify

Related terms

• string along
• string up
• string out

Translations

Further reading

• string on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• String in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English string.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /str??/
• Hyphenation: string
• Rhymes: -??

Noun

string m (plural strings, diminutive stringetje n)

1. (clothing) G-string, thong
2. (computing) character string

Synonyms

• (character string): tekenreeks
• (G-string): reetveter

French

Etymology

From English string.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?i?/

Noun

string m (plural strings)

1. G-string, thong, tanga

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from English string.

Pronunciation

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /es?t???(i)/, /es?t???(i)/

Noun

string m (plural strings)

1. (computing) string (sequence of consecutive text characters)

   Synonyms: cadeia, cadeia de caracteres

Swedish

Etymology

From English string.

Noun

string c

1. G-string, thong

Derived terms

• stringkalsong
• stringtrosa

Anagrams

• ringts

Tok Pisin

Etymology

From English string.

Noun

string

1. string; cord