Definition of "thread"

thread

/θɹɛd/

noun
plural threads
1. A long, thin and flexible form of material, generally with a round cross-section, used in sewing, weaving or in the construction of string.
  Quotations
  He walked. To the corner of Hamilton Place and Picadilly, and there stayed for a while, for it is a romantic station by night. The vague and careless rain looked like threads of gossamer silver passing across the light of the arc-lamps.
  1922, Michael Arlen, “Ep./1/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days
2. A continued theme or idea.
3. (engineering) A screw thread.
4. A sequence of connections.
  Quotations
  I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a somewhat unexpected one, broke the thread of my musings.
  1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Chapter XVIII
  ‘Let him go on. Do not interrupt him. He cannot go back, and maybe could not proceed at all if once he lost the thread of his thought.’
  1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Chapter 21
5. The line midway between the banks of a stream.
6. (computing) A unit of execution, lighter in weight than a process, usually sharing memory and other resources with other threads executing concurrently.
7. (Internet) A series of messages, generally grouped by subject, in which all messages except the first are replies to previous messages in the thread.
8. A filament, as of a flower, or of any fibrous substance, as of bark.
9. (figurative) Composition; quality; fineness.
  Quotations
  A neat courtier, / Of a most elegant thread.
  1632 (first performance), Benjamin Jonson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “The Magnetick Lady: Or, Humors Reconcil’d. A Comedy […]”, in The Workes of Benjamin Jonson. The Second Volume. […] (Second Folio), London: […] Richard Meighen, published 1640
verb
third-person singular simple present threads, present participle threading, simple past threaded or (archaic) thrid, past participle threaded or (archaic) thridden
1. (transitive) To put thread through.
2. (transitive) To pass (through a narrow constriction or around a series of obstacles).
  Quotations
  The line to Uganda goes up the side of a slope in a series of S-bends, and as the telegraph wires follow the line, from below they look like a forest as they thread backwards and forwards about six times.
  1950 April, Timothy H. Cobb, “The Kenya-Uganda Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 266
  On the descent the line is often in cuttings; some are high, such as at Scarcroft, where a cut through firestone and fireclay was necessary, and near Bardsey, where the line threads a deep tree-lined gorge.
  1961 February, D. Bertram, “The lines to Wetherby and their traffic”, in Trains Illustrated, page 101
  Picking the ball up in his own half, Januzaj threaded a 40-yard pass into the path of Rooney to slice Southampton open in the blink of an eye.
  2013 October 19, Ben Smith, BBC Sport
3. To screw on; to fit the threads of a nut on a bolt.
4. (transitive) To remove the hair using a thread.

Definition of "thread"

thread

noun

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Quotations

Quotations

verb

Quotations