Emily Dickinson Lexicon

STRING'LESS, a.

Having no strings. His tongue is now a stringless instrument. – Shak.

STRING'PIECE, n.

A piece of timber in bridges.

STRING'Y, a.

1. Consisting of strings or small threads; fibrous; filamentous; as, a stringy root. – Grew.
2. Ropy; viscid; gluey; that may be drawn into a thread.

STRIP, n. [G. streif, a stripe, a streak; D. streep, a stroke, a line, a stripe; Dan. stribe.]

1. A narrow piece, comparatively long; as, a strip of cloth.
2. Waste, in a legal sense; destruction of fences, buildings, timber, &c. [Norm. estrippe.] – Massachusetts.

STRIP, v.t. [G. streifen, to strip, to flay, to stripe or streak, to graze upon, to swerve, ramble or stroll; D. streepen, to stripe, to reprimand; Dan. striber, to stripe or streak, and stripper, to strip, to skin or flay, to ramble; Sax. bestrypan. Some of the senses of these verbs seem to be derived from the noun stripe, which is probably from stripping. Regularly, this verb should be referred to the root of rip, L. rapio.]

1. To pull or tear off, as, a covering; as, to strip the skin from a beast; to strip the bark from a tree; to strip the clothes from a man's back.
2. To deprive of a covering; to skin; to peel; as, to strip a beast of his skin; to strip a tree of its bark; to strip a man of his clothes.
3. To deprive; to bereave; to make destitute; as, to strip a man of his possessions.
4. To divest; as, to strip one of his rights and privileges. Let us strip this subject of all its adventitious glare.
5. To rob; to plunder; as, robbers strip a house.
6. To bereave; to deprive; to impoverish; as, a man stripped of his fortune.
7. To deprive; to make bare by cutting, grazing or other means; as, cattle strip the ground of its herbage.
8. To pull off husks; to husk; as, to strip maiz, or the ears of maiz. – America.
9. To press out the last milk at a milking.
10. To unrig; as, to strip a ship. – Locke.
11. To pare off the surface of land in strips, and turn over the strips upon the adjoining surface. To strip off, to pull or take off; as, to strip off a covering; to strip off a mask or disguise. #2. To cast off. [Not in use.] – Shak. #3. To separate from something connected. [Not in use.] [We may observe the primary sense of this word is to peel or skin, hence to pull off in a long narrow piece; hence stripe.]

STRIPE, n. [See Strip. It is probable that this word is taken from stripping.]

1. A line or long narrow division of any thing, of a different color from the ground; as, a stripe of red on a green ground; hence, any linear variation of color. – Bacon.
2. A strip or long narrow piece attached to something of a different color; as, a long stripe sewed upon a garment.
3. The wale or long narrow mark discolored by a lash or rod.
4. A stroke made with a lash, whip, rod, strap or scourge. Forty stripes may he give him, and not exceed. – Deut. xxv. [A blow with a club is not a stripe.]
5. Affliction; punishment; sufferings. By his stripes are we healed. – Is. liii.

STRIPE, v.t.

1. To make stripes; to form with lines of different colors; to variegate with stripes.
2. To strike; to lash. [Little used.]

STRIP'ED, pp.

1. Formed with lines of different colors.
2. adj. Having stripes of different colors.

STRIP'ING, ppr.

Forming with stripes.

STRIP'LING, n. [from strip, stripe; primarily, a tall slender youth, one that shoots up suddenly.]

A youth in the state of adolescence, or just passing from boyhood to manhood; a lad. And the king said, Inquire thou whose son the stripling is. – 1 Sam. xviii.

STRIP'PED, pp.

Pulled or torn off; peeled; skinned; deprived; divested; made naked; impoverished; husked, as maiz.

STRIP'PER, n.

One that strips.

STRIP'PING, ppr.

Pulling off; peeling; skinning; flaying; depriving; divesting; husking.

STRIP'PINGS, n.

The last milk drawn from a cow at a milking. – Grose. New England.

STRIVE, v.i. [pret. strove; pp. striven. G. streben; D. streeven; Sw. sträfva; Dan. stræber; formed perhaps on the Heb. רוב. This word coincides in elements with drive, and the primary sense is nearly the same. See Rival.]

1. To make efforts; to use exertions; to endeavor with earnestness; to labor hard; applicable to exertions of body or mind. A workman strives to perform his task before another; a student strives to excel his fellows in improvement. Was it for this that his ambition strove / To equal Cesar first, and after Jove? – Cowley. Strive with me in your prayers to God for me. – Rom. xv. Strive to enter in at the strait gate. – Luke xiii.
2. To contend; to contest; to struggle in opposition to another; to be in contention or dispute; followed by against or with before the person or thing opposed; as, strive against temptation; strive for the truth. My spirit shall not always strive with man. – Gen. vi.
3. To oppose by contrariety of qualities. Now private pity strove with public hate, / Reason with rage, and eloquence with fate. – Derham.
4. To vie; to be comparable to; to emulate; to contend in excellence. Not that sweet grove / Of Daphne by Orontes, and the inspir'd / Castalian spring, might with this paradise / Of Eden strive. – Milton.

STRIV'ER, n.

One that strives or contends; one who makes efforts of body or mind.

STRIV'ING, n.

The act of making efforts; contest; contention. Avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions, and strivings about the law. – Tit. iii.

STRIV'ING, ppr.

Making efforts; exerting the powers of body or mind with earnestness; contending.

STRIV'ING-LY, adv.

With earnest efforts; with struggles.

STRIX, n. [L. an owl.]

A channel in a fluted column or pillar.

STROAM, v.i.

To wander about idly and vacantly.

STROB'IL, n. [L. strobilus.]

In botany, an ament, the carpels of which are scale-like, and spread open and bear naked seeds; sometimes the scales are thin, with little cohesion; but they are often woody and cohere into a single tuberculated mass. Example, the fruit of the pines. – Lindley.

STROB'IL-I-FORM, a. [L. strobilus and forma, supra.]

Shaped like a strobil.

STRO'CAL, or STRO'KAL, n.

An instrument used by glass-makers to empty the metal from one pot to another. – Encyc.

STROKE, n. [from strike.]

1. A blow; the striking of one body against another; applicable to a club or to any heavy body, or to a rod, whip or lash. A piece of timber falling may kill a man by its stroke; a man when whipped, can hardly fail to flinch or wince at every stroke. Th' oars were silver, / Which to the time of flutes kept stroke. – Shak.
2. A hostile blow or attack. He entered and won the whole kingdom of Naples without striking a stroke. – Bacon.
3. A sudden attack of disease or affliction; calamity. At this one stroke the man look'd dead in law. – Harte.
4. Fatal attack; as, the stroke of death.
5. The sound of the clock. What is't o'clock? / Upon the stroke of four. – Shak.
6. The touch of a pencil. Oh, lasting as those colors may they shine, / Free as thy stroke, yet faultless as the line. – Pope. Some parts of my work have been brightened by the strokes of your lordship's pencil. – Middleton.
7. A touch; a masterly effort; as, the boldest strokes of poetry. – Dryden. He will give one of the finishing strokes to it. – Addison.
8. An effort suddenly or unexpectedly produced.
9. Power; efficacy. He has a great stroke with the reader, when he condemns any of my poems, to make time world have a better opinion of them. – Dryden. [I believe this sense is obsolete.]
10. Series of operations; as, to carry on a great stroke in business. [A common use of the word.]
11. A dash in writing or printing; a line; a touch of the pen; no, a hair stroke.
12. In seamen's language, the sweep of an oar; as, to row with a long stroke.