Other forms: strings
String is thin cord — the stuff for tying parcels, flying kites and holding gates shut. A ball of string, a piece of string, tie it with string.
It is uncountable for the material and countable for a length of it, which is why you say a piece of string rather than a string. On a musical instrument the strings are what you pluck or bow, and the strings means the whole violin section of an orchestra. In computing a string is a sequence of characters — text, as against a number — and that is now among the commonest technical uses of the word. Note the verb: to string things together is to link them in a line, and strung out means stretched thin.
1nounstringThin cord used for tying things.
“There is a ball of string in the drawer.”
synonyms: twine, cord
2nountightlyA tightly stretched wire or cord on a musical instrument.
“One of the strings snapped in the middle of the piece.”
3nouncomputingIn computing, a sequence of characters treated as text.
“The function takes a string and returns its length.”
4nounseriesA series of similar things one after another.
“A string of bad results cost him the job.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
string is thin cord, or a series.
Also accepted in games: twine
Old English streng comes from a root meaning to tighten — the same root as strong, strength and stringent. A string is something drawn taut, which is why the word suits a bow, a violin and a washing line equally.
Proto-Indo-European
*strengʰ- — rope, cord, strand; to tighten
Proto-Germanic
*strangiz — string
Proto-West Germanic
*strangi
Old English
strenġ
Middle English
string
English, today
string
From Middle English string, streng, strynge, from Old English strenġ, from Proto-West Germanic strangi, from Proto-Germanic strangiz (“string”), from Proto-Indo-European strengʰ- (“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 stringō (“to tighten”), Ancient Greek στραγγαλόομαι (“to strangle”), from στραγγάλη (“halter”), Ancient Greek στραγγός (“tied together, entangled, twisted”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA