thread
See also: Thread
EnglishEdit
Alternative formsEdit
- thred (obsolete)
EtymologyEdit
From Middle English thred, þred, threed, from Old English þrǣd, from Proto-Germanic *þrēduz, from Proto-Indo-European *treh₁-tu-s, from *terh₁- (“rub, twist”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Träid (“thread, wire”), West Frisian tried, Dutch draad, German Draht, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish tråd, and Icelandic þráður. Non-Germanic cognates include Albanian dredh (“twist, turn”). More at throw.
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
thread (plural threads)
- A long, thin and flexible form of material, generally with a round cross-section, used in sewing, weaving or in the construction of string.
- 1922, Michael Arlen, “Ep./1/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days:
- 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.
- A continued theme or idea.
- Synonym: topic
- All of these essays have a common thread.
- I’ve lost the thread of what you’re saying.
- (engineering) A screw thread.
- A sequence of connections.
- 1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Chapter XVIII:
- I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a somewhat unexpected one, broke the thread of my musings.
- 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Chapter 21:
- ‘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.’
- The line midway between the banks of a stream.
- (computing) A unit of execution, lighter in weight than a process, usually sharing memory and other resources with other threads executing concurrently.
- (Internet) A series of messages, generally grouped by subject, in which all messages except the first are replies to previous messages in the thread.
- A filament, as of a flower, or of any fibrous substance, as of bark.
- (figurative) Composition; quality; fineness.
- 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, →OCLC:
- A neat courtier, / Of a most elegant thread.
HyponymsEdit
Derived termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
long, thin and flexible form of material
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a theme or idea — See also translations at common thread
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a screw thread — see screw thread
a sequence of connection
the line midway between the banks of a stream
(computing): a unit of execution
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(Internet): a series of messages
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VerbEdit
thread (third-person singular simple present threads, present participle threading, simple past threaded or (archaic) thrid, past participle threaded or (archaic) thridden)
- (transitive) To put thread through.
- thread a needle
- (transitive) To pass (through a narrow constriction or around a series of obstacles).
- I think I can thread my way through here, but it’s going to be tight.
- 1961 February, D. Bertram, “The lines to Wetherby and their traffic”, in Trains Illustrated, page 101:
- 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.
- 2013 October 19, Ben Smith, BBC Sport:
- 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.
- To screw on; to fit the threads of a nut on a bolt.
- (transitive) To remove the hair using a thread.
- How to thread your eyebrows and trim them
Derived termsEdit
- threaded (adjective)
- multithreaded
TranslationsEdit
put thread through
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to pass
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to screw on
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See alsoEdit
- sewing needle on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
ReferencesEdit
AnagramsEdit
FrenchEdit
EtymologyEdit
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
thread m (plural threads)
SynonymsEdit
ItalianEdit
EtymologyEdit
NounEdit
thread m (invariable)
PortugueseEdit
EtymologyEdit
Unadapted borrowing from English thread.
NounEdit
thread f (plural threads)