Other forms: stripes
A stripe is one of the long straight coloured lines on a zebra or a shirt. Blue stripes, a striped shirt, earn your stripes.
In the forces stripes are rank badges worn on the sleeve, which is where earning your stripes comes from — it means proving yourself. Vertical stripes are said to make a body look taller, which is true only within limits. The word came from Dutch.
1nounstripeA long straight coloured line.
“He wore a blue shirt with thin white stripes.”
stripe is a line.
Also accepted in games: stripes
From Middle Dutch or Middle Low German stripe, from a Germanic root meaning a streak or line.
Proto-Germanic
*strīpô
Proto-West Germanic
*strīpā
Middle Low German
strîpe
Middle English
stripe
English, today
stripe
From Middle English stripe, strype, from Middle Dutch - or Middle Low German strîpe, from Proto-West Germanic strīpā, strīpō, from Proto-Germanic strīpô. Cognate with stq Striepe (“stripe, strip”), West Frisian stripe (“stripe”), Dutch streep (“stripe”), German Low German Striepe, Striep, Streep (“stripe”), German Streifen (“stripe, strip, band”), Danish stribe (“stripe”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA