different between streak vs straggle

English

Etymology

From Middle English streke, from Old English strica, from Proto-Germanic *strikiz, from Proto-Indo-European *streyg- (“line”). Related to North Frisian strijck, Old Saxon striki, Middle Low German streke, Low German streek, Danish streg, Swedish streck, Norwegian Bokmål strek, Icelandic stryk, strykr, Dutch streek, Afrikaans streek, Old High German strih, German Strich, Gothic ???????????????????????? (striks).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?i?k/
• Rhymes: -i?k

Noun

streak (plural streaks)

1. An irregular line left from smearing or motion.

2. A continuous series of like events.

3. The color of the powder of a mineral. So called, because a simple field test for a mineral is to streak it against unglazed white porcelain.
4. A moth of the family Geometridae, Chesias legatella.
   • Streak (moth) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
5. A tendency or characteristic, but not a dominant or pervasive one.
6. (shipbuilding) A strake.
7. A rung or round of a ladder.
8. The act of streaking, or running naked through a public area

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

streak (third-person singular simple present streaks, present participle streaking, simple past and past participle streaked)

1. (intransitive) To have or obtain streaks.

   If you clean a window in direct sunlight, it will streak.

2. (intransitive, slang) To run naked in public. (Contrast flash)

   It was a pleasant game until some guy went streaking across the field.

3. (transitive) To create streaks.

   You will streak a window by cleaning it in direct sunlight.
4. (transitive) To move very swiftly.
5. (obsolete, Britain, Scotland) To stretch; to extend; hence, to lay out, as a dead body.

Translations

See also

• losing streak
• streaker
• winning streak
• talk a blue streak

Anagrams

• Akters, Kaster, Krastë, Skater, Staker, Starke, Tasker, retask, sakret, skater, staker, strake, takers, tasker, trakes

English

Etymology

From Middle English straglen, of uncertain origin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?st?æ?l?/
• Rhymes: -æ??l
• Hyphenation: strag?gle

Verb

straggle (third-person singular simple present straggles, present participle straggling, simple past and past participle straggled)

1. To stray from the road, course or line of march.

   He straggled away from the crowd and went off on his own.

2. To wander about; ramble.
3. To spread at irregular intervals.
4. To escape or stretch beyond proper limits, as the branches of a plant; to spread widely apart; to shoot too far or widely in growth.

   • Trim off the small, superfluous branches on each side of the hedge that straggle too far out.

5. To be dispersed or separated; to occur at intervals.
   • They came between Scylla and Charybdis and the straggling rocks.

Derived terms

• (noun) straggler
• (adverb) stragglingly

Translations

Noun

straggle (plural straggles)

1. An irregular, spread-out group.
2. An outlier; something that has strayed beyond the normal limits.
   • 1858 Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia

     Nevertheless there is a straggle of pungent sense in it, — like the outskirts of lightning, seen in that dismally wet weather, which the Royal Party had.