different between pack vs string

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pæk/, [p?æk]
• Rhymes: -æk

Etymology 1

From Middle English pak, pakke, from Old English pæcca and/or Middle Dutch pak, packe; both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *pakkô (“bundle, pack”). Cognate with Dutch pak (“pack”), Low German Pack (“pack”), German Pack (“pack”), Swedish packe (“pack”), Icelandic pakka, pakki (“package”).

Noun

pack (plural packs)

1. A bundle made up and prepared to be carried; especially, a bundle to be carried on the back, but also a load for an animal, a bale.

2. A number or quantity equal to the contents of a pack
3. A multitude.

4. A number or quantity of connected or similar things; a collective.
5. A full set of playing cards

6. The assortment of playing cards used in a particular game.

7. A group of hounds or dogs, hunting or kept together.
   • 2005, John D. Skinner and Christian T. Chimimba, The Mammals of the Southern African Subregion

     African wild dogs hunt by sight, although stragglers use their noses to follow the pack.

8. A wolfpack: a number of wolves, hunting together.
9. A group of people associated or leagued in a bad design or practice; a gang.
10. A group of Cub Scouts.
11. A shook of cask staves.
12. A bundle of sheet iron plates for rolling simultaneously.
13. A large area of floating pieces of ice driven together more or less closely.

14. (medicine) An envelope, or wrapping, of sheets used in hydropathic practice, called dry pack, wet pack, cold pack, etc., according to the method of treatment.
15. (slang): A loose, lewd, or worthless person.
16. (snooker, pool) A tight group of object balls in cue sports. Usually the reds in snooker.
17. (rugby) The forwards in a rugby team (eight in Rugby Union, six in Rugby League) who with the opposing pack constitute the scrum.

Synonyms

(full set of cards): deck

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English pakken, from the noun (see above). Compare Middle Dutch packen (“to pack”), Middle Low German packen (“to pack”).

Verb

pack (third-person singular simple present packs, present participle packing, simple past and past participle packed)

1. (physical) To put or bring things together in a limited or confined space, especially for storage or transport.
   1. (transitive) To make a pack of; to arrange closely and securely in a pack; hence, to place and arrange compactly as in a pack
      • 1712, Joseph Addison, The Spectator Number 275

        strange materials wound up in that shape and texture, and packed together with wonderful art in the several cavities of the skull
   2. (transitive) To fill in the manner of a pack, that is, compactly and securely, as for transportation; hence, to fill closely or to repletion; to stow away within; to cause to be full; to crowd into.
   3. (transitive) To wrap in a wet or dry sheet, within numerous coverings.

   4. (transitive) To make impervious, such as by filling or surrounding with suitable material, or to fit or adjust so as to move without allowing air, water, or steam inside.

   5. (intransitive) To make up packs, bales, or bundles; to stow articles securely for transportation.
   6. (intransitive) To form a compact mass, especially in order for transportation.

   7. (intransitive, of animals) To gather together in flocks, herds, schools or similar groups of animals.

   8. (transitive, historical) To combine (telegraph messages) in order to send them more cheaply as a single transmission.
2. (social) To cheat.
   1. (transitive, card games) To sort and arrange (the cards) in the pack to give oneself an unfair advantage
      • 1733 Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man

        Mighty dukes pack cards for half a crown.

   2. (transitive) To bring together or make up unfairly, in order to secure a certain result.
      • 1687, Francis Atterbury, An answer to some considerations on the spirit of Martin Luther and the original of the Reformation

        The expected council was dwindling into […] a packed assembly of Italian bishops.

   3. (transitive) To contrive unfairly or fraudulently; to plot.
      • 1655, Thomas Fuller, The church-history of Britain

        He lost life […] upon a nice point subtilely devised and packed by his enemies.

   4. (intransitive) To put together for morally wrong purposes; to join in cahoots.
3. (transitive) To load with a pack

4. (transitive, figuratively) to load; to encumber.
5. To move, send or carry.
   1. (transitive) To cause to go; to send away with baggage or belongings; especially, to send away peremptorily or suddenly; – sometimes with off. See pack off.
   2. (transitive, US, chiefly Western US) To transport in a pack, or in the manner of a pack (on the backs of men or animals).
   3. (intransitive) To depart in haste; – generally with off or away.
      • 1723, Jonathan Swift, Stella at Wood-Park:

        Poor Stella must pack off to town.

      • 1842, Alfred Tennyson, Dora:

        You shall pack, / And never more darken my doors again.

   4. (transitive, slang) To carry weapons, especially firearms, on one's person.

6. (transitive, sports, slang) To block a shot, especially in basketball.
7. (intransitive, rugby, of the forwards in a rugby team) To play together cohesively, specially with reference to their technique in the scrum.
8. (intransitive, LGBT, of a drag king, trans man, etc.) To wear a prosthetic penis inside one’s trousers for better verisimilitude.

Synonyms

• (To sort and arrange (the cards) in a pack so as to secure the game unfairly): stack

Antonyms

• (make into a pack): unpack

Derived terms

Translations

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pak/

Noun

pack m (plural packs)

1. pack (item of packaging)
2. pack ice
3. (sports) A rugby team

Middle English

Noun

pack

1. Alternative form of pak

Scots

Adjective

pack

1. intimate; confidential

Spanish

Etymology

From English pack.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?pak/, [?pak]

Noun

pack m (plural packs)

1. pack, package
2. kit, set, bundle
3. (colloquial, euphemistic) sexual photos and videos, paid or not, sent over internet, network social; sexting photos

Swedish

Noun

pack n

1. a group of unwanted people, lower class people, trash
2. stuff, things, luggage; only in the expression pick och pack

Declension

See also

• packa
• paket

Descendants

• ? Finnish: pakka

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