| string | 1. To furnish with strings; as, to string a violin. "Has not wise nature strung the legs and feet With firmest nerves, designed to walk the street?" (Gay) 2. To put in tune the strings of, as a stringed instrument, in order to play upon it. "For here the Muse so oft her harp has strung, That not a mountain rears its head unsung." (Addison) 3. To put on a string; to file; as, to string beads. 4. To make tense; to strengthen. "Toil strung the nerves, and purified the blood." (Dryden) 5. To deprive of strings; to strip the strings from; as, to string beans. See String. Origin: Strung; Strung (Stringed); Stringing. 1. A small cord, a line, a twine, or a slender strip of leather, or other substance, used for binding together, fastening, or tying things; a cord, larger than a thread and smaller than a rope; as, a shoe string; a bonnet string; a silken string. "Round Ormond's knee thou tiest the mystic string." (Prior) 2. 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 succession; a concatenation; a chain; as, a string of shells or beads; a string of dried apples; a string of houses; a string of arguments. "A string of islands." 3. A strip, as of leather, by which the covers of a book are held together. 4. The cord of a musical instrument, as of a piano, harp, or violin; specifically (pl), the stringed instruments of an orchestra, in distinction from the wind instruments; as, the strings took up the theme. "An instrument of ten strings." "Me softer airs befit, and softer strings Of lute, or viol still." (Milton) 5. The line or cord of a bow. "He twangs the grieving string." (Pope) 6. A fibre, as of a plant; a little, fibrous root. "Duckweed putteth forth a little string into the water, from the bottom." (Bacon) 7. A nerve or tendon of an animal body. "The string of his tongue was loosed." (Mark vii. 35) 8. An inside range of ceiling planks, corresponding to the sheer strake on the outside and bolted to it. 9. <botany> The tough fibrous substance that unites the valves of the pericap of leguminous plants, and which is readily pulled off; as, the strings of beans. 10. <chemical> A small, filamentous ramification of a metallic vein. 11. Same as Stringcourse. 12. The points made in a game. String band, a band of musicians using only, or chiefly, stringed instruments. String beans. A dish prepared from the unripe pods of several kinds of beans; so called because the strings are stripped off. Any kind of beans in which the pods are used for cooking before the seeds are ripe; usually, the low bush bean. To have two strings to one's bow, to have a means or expedient in reserve in case the one employed fails. Origin: OE. String, streng, AS. Streng; akin to D. Streng, G. Strang, Icel. Strengr, Sw. Strang, Dan. Straeng; probably from the adj, E. Strong (see Strong); or perhaps originally meaning, twisted, and akin to E. Strangle. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
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| string sign | In paediatric gastrointestinal radiology, the narrowed pyloric canal seen with congenital pyloric stenosis; also used to describe a narrowed segment in regional ileitis on small bowel series. (05 Mar 2000) |
| string test | A test to locate gastrointestinal haemorrhage; a weighted string is repeatedly swallowed and removed, each time allowing the string to go further down the gut until blood is encountered; a similar procedure to obtain a specimen from the bowel lumen. (05 Mar 2000) |
| stringed instrument theory | A no longer tenable theory stating that in human voice production the vocal cords function in a manner similar to the strings in a stringed musical instrument. (05 Mar 2000) |
| stringency | <molecular biology> Reaction conditions, notably temperature, salt, and pH that dictate the annealing of single-stranded DNA/DNA, DNA/ RNA, and RNA/RNA hybrids. at high stringency, duplexes form only between strands with perfect one-to-one complementarity, lower stringency allows annealing between strands with some degree of mismatch between bases. (16 Dec 1997) |
| stringent factor | The gene product (an enzyme) that is crucial to the cellular response of decreased ribosome production as a result of amino acid starvation. See: stringent response. (05 Mar 2000) |
| stringent plasmid | <molecular biology> A plasmid that only replicates along with the main bacterial chromosome and is present as a single copy, or at most several copies, per cell. (16 Dec 1997) |
| stringent response | The cellular response to amino acid starvation that reduces the amount of ribosomes to what can be employed under the nutrient conditions. (05 Mar 2000) |
| stringhalt | <veterinary> An habitual sudden twitching of the hinder leg of a horse, or an involuntary or convulsive contraction of the muscles that raise the hock. Alternative forms: springhalt. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
| stringy | 1. Consisting of strings, or small threads; fibrous; filamentous; as, a stringy root. 2. Capable of being drawn into a string, as a glutinous substance; ropy; viscid; gluely. <botany> Stringy bark, a name given in Australia to several trees of the genus Eucalyptus (as E. Amygdalina, obliqua, capitellata, macrorhyncha, piperita, pilularis, and tetradonta), which have a fibrous bark used by the aborigines for making cordage and cloth. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
| cysteine string protein | <protein> (CSPs) Peripheral membrane proteins that contain more than 10 palmitoylated cysteines and a DNA J homology domain. Nature 375:647 (18 Nov 1997) |
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| purse-string instrument | An intestinal clamp with jaws at an angle to the handle; when closed across the bowel, large grooved interdigitating serrations allow passage of a straight needle and suture through each side to form a purse-string suture, after which the clamp is removed. (05 Mar 2000) |
| purse-string suture | A continuous suture placed in a circular manner either for inversion (as for an appendiceal stump) or closure (as for a hernia). (05 Mar 2000) |
| fluorescein string test | A string test used to determine location of a bleeding intestinal lesion in which fluorescein is given intravenously to determine gastrointestinal haemorrhage; if the string fluoresces after removal, it has been contaminated by blood that has appeared since injection of the fluorescein; used to determine location of bleeding lesion. (05 Mar 2000) |