Pa. t. and pa. pple. strung. Forms: 8 stringe, strynge, 6– string. Pa. t. 7 stringed, 9 dial. strang, 7– strung. Pa. pple. 6 strong, 7 strunge, 6– strung; 5 y-strenged, 6 strynged, 7–9 stringed. [f. STRING sb. Except for an instance of ystrenged (c. 1400 in 1), the vb. first appears in the 16th c. The ‘strong’ conjugation in imitation of sing (cf. ring) has prevailed from 1590 onwards, though a few examples of the weak form stringed occur in the 16–19th c.]
1. trans. a. To fit (a bow) with its string; to ‘bend’ or prepare for use by slipping the loop of the bowstring into its notch, so that the string is drawn tight.
c. 1400. Laud Troy Bk., 6537. With bowys gode wel y-strenged.
1545. Ascham, Toxoph., II. (Arb.), 112. In stringynge youre bowe, you must loke for muche bende or lytle bende.
1697. Dryden, Æneis, X. 674. Then, as the winged Weapon whiz’d along; See now, said he, whose Arm is better strung.
1788. J. Hurdis, Village Curate (1797), 96. He tipt his arrow, strung his bow, and shot.
1897. Encycl. Sport, I. 43/1. (Archery) The next thing is to ‘string’ or ‘bend’ the bow.
b. To fit or furnish (a musical instrument) with a string or strings; to fix strings in. Also poet. to tighten the strings of (an instrument) to the required pitch; to tune.
1530. Rastell, Bk. Purgat., II. xv. d 3 b. As the harper can not make nor shewe no melodye wyth his harpe, excepte yt be strynged and in tewne.
1591. Spenser, Virgil’s Gnat, 16. Playing on yuorie harp with silver strong.
1591. Shaks., Two Gent., III. ii. 78. Orpheus Lute was strung with Poets sinewes.
1676. Mace, Musick’s Mon., 42. I would … that the Scholar be taught to String his Instrument, with Good and True Strings.
1761. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, V. xv. Do you know whether my fiddle’s in tune or no?… ’Tis wickedly strung.
1812. Byron, Ch. Har., I. xiii. He seized his harp, which he at times could string.
1827. J. Stewart, in Abridg. Specif. Patents, Mus. (1871), 101. Improvements in pianofortes and in the mode of stringing the same.
c. To fit (the bow of a violin, etc.) with horsehairs stretched from end to end.
1663. Butler, Hud., I. ii. 126. His grizly Beard was long and thick, With which he strung his Fiddle-stick.
d. To fit (a racket) with strings and cross-strings of cord or catgut.
1884. [see STRINGING vbl. sb. 1].
2. To furnish (the body) with nerves or sinews; spec. to furnish (the tongue) with its frænum. Chiefly used as in 3.
1632. Lyly’s Endimion, III. iii. 125. (Song), When his tongue Once goes, a Cat is not worse strung.
1632. Brome, North. Lasse, Ep. Ded. Though Art neuer strung her tongue; yet once it yeelded a delightfull sound.
1700. Dryden, Ovid’s Met., XV. 343. In time he vaunts among his Youthful Peers, Strong-bon’d, and strung with Nerves, in pride of Years.
1716. Gay, Trivia, III. 241. Has not wise nature strung the legs and feet With firmest nerves, design’d to walk the street?
fig. 1697. Dryden, Æneis, Ded. (e) 2. Their Language is not strung with Sinews like our English.
1862. Merivale, Rom. Emp., lxii. (1865), VII. 354. He lacked the tenacity of fibre which strung the old Roman and Sabine fabric.
3. fig. (often with direct allusion to 1). To make tense, brace, give vigor or tone to the nerves, sinews, the mind, its ideas or impressions, etc.).
1599. Storer, Life & D. Wolsey, I 1 b. The peoples hearts of late are strung so hard, That they will breake before one note shall sound, Or so vntunable, that still they iar’de.
1699. Dryden, To John Driden, 89. Toil strung the Nerves and purifi’d the Blood.
1725. Pope, Odyss., VIII. 568. He fights, subdues: for Pallas strings his arms.
1823. Scott, Quentin D., xxxvii. The thought … strung his nerves with vigour, which defied fatigue.
1848–9. Lytton, K. Arth., III. xiv. Strung by that sleep, the savage scowl’d around.
1871. Freeman, Hist. Ess., Ser. I. viii. 229. The besiegers’ hearts were strung by every motive which could lead men to defend themselves to the last.
1880. Meredith, Tragic Com., I. v. 92. A turn of her fingers would string or slacken him.
b. with up.
1845. J. Coulter, Adv. in Pacific, xvi. 247. The muscles of every one were strung up for the moment.
1888. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Robbery under Arms, xxii. When a man ’s cold and tired, and hungry,… a good caulker of grog … strings him up and puts him straight.
1898. Dubl. Rev., Jan., 163. Perhaps this is an attempt to string up the human ideal too highly for everyday practice.
c. To brace to, rarely for (action) or to (do something). Also, to attune to (a frame of mind). Also (vulgar), to egg on.
1748. Gray, Alliance, 69. Need we the influence of the northern star To string our nerves and steel our hearts to war?
1888. Meredith, Reading of Earth, 10. Where Life is at her grindstone set, That she may give us edgeing keen, String us for battle, till [etc.].
1888. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Robbery under Arms, III. vi. 81. Mr. Hamilton waited for about an hour so as to be sure they weren’t stringing him on to go into the open to be potted at.
d. With qualifying adv. (chiefly pass.): To bring to a (specified) condition of tension or sensitiveness. Cf. OVERSTRUNG 1, high-strung s.v. HIGH adv. 10 a.
1860. Mrs. Clive, Why Paul Ferroll, vi. 135. Elinor, finely strung to sounds.
1863. Mrs. Gaskell, Sylvia’s Lovers, I. vii. 132. But Sylvia was too highly strung for banter.
1866. R. M. Ballantyne, Shifting Winds, ii. (1881), 11. A … British tar … whose nerves were tightly strung and used to danger.
† 4. ? To furnish or adorn (a garment) with strings or ties. Obs.
a. 1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. VIII., 8 b. Garmentes of Crymosyn Satyn embroudered … with cloth of gold, cut in Pomegranettes and yokes, strynged after the facion of Spaygne.
1598. Florio, Stringolare, to point, to lace, or to string.
5. To bind, tie, fasten or secure with a string or strings; † spec. to fasten (a book) with ribbons or cords (obs.); to tether (an animal).
1613. Chapman, Rev. Bussy d’Amb., II. i. D 3. As the foolish Poet that still writ All his most selfe-lou’d verse in paper royall, Or Partchment … Bound richly vp, and strung with Crimson strings.
1641. Milton, Animadv., 19. Set the grave councels up upon their shelvs again, and string them hard.
1805. Wordsw., Prelude, V. 240. If … We had been followed, hourly watched, and noosed, Each in his several melancholy walk Stringed like a poor man’s heifer at its feed.
1860. Geo. Eliot, Mill on Fl., IV. iii. Bob took up the small stringed packet of books.
b. To bind (the handle of a cricket-bat) with twine wound tightly round.
1887. St. James’s Gaz., 16 Feb., 5/1. Makers only string the bat for the purpose of concealing defects and selling the article at a higher price.
6. To thread or file (beads and the like) on or as on a string. Also fig. Also with together, etc.
1612. Donne, Progr. Soule, 2nd Anniv., 208. As these starres were but so many beads Strung on one string.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 476, ¶ 2. Men of great Learning … often … chuse to throw down their Pearls in Heaps before the Reader, rather than be at the Pains of stringing them.
1783. Justamond, trans. Raynal’s Hist. Indies, III. 177. The roots are afterwards strung upon little strings to dry them.
1832. Mrs. Child, Girl’s Own Bk. (ed. 4), 68. The hard red seed-vessels of the rose, strung upon strong thread, make quite a pretty necklace.
1836. Marryat, Midsh. Easy, vi. James was very busy stringing the fish through the gills upon a piece of osier.
1844. ‘J. Slick,’ High Life N. York, I. 46. There wasn’t a gal … could pull an even yoke with her a stringing onions.
1874. H. H. Cole, Catal. Ind. Art S. Kens. Mus., App. 297. Necklace…, formed of gold pear-shaped drops strung together.
1901. Jrnl. Exper. Med., 1 Oct., 604. They contain much of the basophile substance in the form of fine granules, often strung along in rows.
b. To hang or suspend by a connecting string.
1890. Gunter, Miss Nobody, xxiii. (1891), 268. These [lights] are strung down the avenue and placed here and there through the gardens.
1907. J. H. Patterson, Man-Eaters of Tsavo, ii. 27. A rope by which two empty oil tins were strung across the donkey’s neck.
c. fig. To compose, put together in connected speech. Sometimes with direct allusion to the literal sense (6). Also with together, up.
1605. 1st Pt. Ieronimo, I. i. 60. And well pickt out, knight Marshall; speech well strung.
1620. Shelton, 2nd Pt. Quix., xliii. 281. Threescore thousand Satans take thee and thy Prouerbs, this howre thou hast beene stringing them one vpon another.
1786. Burns, Vision, iv. Stringing blethers up in rhyme For fools to sing.
1830. H. Lee, Mem. Manager, I. iii. 81. Anecdotes and reminiscences which I am about to string together.
1856. N. Brit. Rev., XXVI. 223. On this thread of incident are strung the author’s views of social life.
1884. Manch. Exam., 1 Nov., 5/1. It is easy to indulge in general assertions and to string platitudes together.
d. To string up: to post up the name of (a person) in a list.
1854. Surtees, Handley Cr., xiv. (1901), I. 98. You can’t do better nor follow the example o’ the Leamington lads, who string up all the tradespeople with the amount of their [hunt-] subscriptions in the shops and public places.
7. To hang, kill by hanging. Usually with up.
1727. Gay, Begg. Op., III. xiii. And if rich Men like us were to swing, ’Twou’d thin the Land, such Numbers to string Upon Tyburn Tree!
1786. Burns, Author’s Cry, xxii. Tho’ by the neck she should be strung, She ’ll no desert.
1810. Lamb, Inconv. Being Hanged, Wks. 1903, I. 62. We string up dogs, foxes, bats, moles, weasels. Man surely deserves a steadier death.
1893. McCarthy, Red Diamonds, I. 71. They strung him up after a fair trial before Judge Lynch.
fig. 1747. W. Horsley, Fool, No. 76 (1748), II. 195. From this … you may readily conclude the Reason why you are stringed up here, as a signal Instance of Folly.
b. intr. To be hanged. Also with up. Sc.
a. 1714. Lockhart, Mem. Scot. (ed. 3), Pref. p. ix. My Accusations … are so well founded, that was there, (as we say in Scotland) a right sitting Sheriff, I would not doubt to see some Gentlemen string.
1725. Pennecuik, Descr. Tweeddale, etc. 139. You must, or you must string.
1817. Scott, Rob Roy, xxx. You have confessed yourself a spy, and should string up to the next tree.
1896. ‘G. Setoun,’ R. Urquhart, xxvi. 278. I would ha’e strung for it willin’.
8. trans. To deprive (a thing) of its string or strings; to strip the ‘string’ from (a bean-pod); to remove the runners from (a strawberry-bed); to strip (currants) from the stalk.
1664. Evelyn, Kal. Hort., March (1679), 12. Mid-March dress up … and string your Strawberry beds.
1747. Mrs. Glasse, Cookery (1767), 17. To dress French beans. First string them, then cut them in two.
1888. Sheffield Gloss., s.v., To string currants is to unstring them, i. e. to strip the berries off their stalks.
† b. spec. To remove the string from (a lamprey): see STRING sb. 2 b. In quots. as a ‘proper’ term for carving the fish. Obs.
1508–13. Bk. Keruynge, in Babees Bk. (1868), 265. Strynge that lampraye.
1694. N. H., Ladies Dict., 415/1. A Salmon, chine it; a Lamprey, string it; a Pike, splat it.
c. To pull off (bark) from a tree by champing it into strings or fibers.
1733. W. Ellis, Chiltern & Vale Farm., 124. The Deer greedily eat [the bark of the witch elm], and have so great a love for it, that they will string it with their Mouths to the last bit.
9. To furnish, equip or adorn with something suspended or slang.
1845. J. Coulter, Adv. in Pacific, iii. 24. We … shot a number of rabbits, and strung our rigging with geese.
1874. H. H. Cole, Catal. Ind. Art S. Kens. Mus., 187. Brass and silver wires strung with green … beads.
1906. C. Edwardes Macm. Mag., Sept., 844. A man could not wander about the mountains without meeting a surly loon strung with a telescope who turned him back in his master’s name.
10. To draw up in a line or row; to extend in a string or series; to post so as to form a series of detached or separated units. Also with out, up.
a. 1670. Spalding, Troub. Chas. I. (Bannatyne Club), I. 154. They stringed up their horse company on the other syde of the watter of Dee.
1875. W. T. Sherman, Mem., I. vi. 163. Ships were strung for miles along the lower levee [of New Orleans].
1901. Conan Doyle, in Wide World Mag., VIII. 111/1. Ten thousand men, strung over a large extent of country.
1908. S. E. White, Riverman, xxvi. The rowboats were dragged backward,… and strung out along the bank below.
11. To extend or stretch (something flexible or rigid) from one point to another. Also with out.
1838. Thackeray, Yellowpl. Corr. (1865), 4. While you were looking up to prevent hanging yourself with the ropes which were strung across and about.
1885. H. C. McCook, Tenants Old Farm, 203. Young spiders often manage to string out structures that oddly resemble a bridge in miniature.
1908. S. E. White, Riverman, xxvi. Old Heinzman … is stringing booms across the river—obstructing navigation.
1911. Webster, String v.t. 6. To extend or stretch like a string; as, to string the cables of a suspension bridge.
12. intr. a. To move or progress in a string or disconnected line; spec. in Hunting, of the hounds. Also with adv., as out, away, off, in.
a. 1824. Old Song, in Mactaggart, Gallov. Encycl., 257. String awa my crommies, to the milking loan.
1834. M. Scott, Cruise Midge, xx. As we strung along the narrow path in single file.
1875. Whyte-Melville, Katerfelto, xxiv. (1876), 264. Twenty couple of powerful stag-hounds—stringing somewhat, it may be, as they passed in and out the gnarled substantial stems.
1888. W. B. Lighthall, Young Seigneur, 4. The pedestrians are already stringing off along the road.
1905. T. F. Dale, in Blackw. Mag., Jan., 86/2. Watch staghounds when they are laid on. However good the scent, they string out.
b. Of gun-shot: To travel with varying velocity, so that the pellets of one charge arrive at different times at a given point.
1892. Greener, Breech Loader, 267. Having ascertained by actual experiment that at forty yards his shot was stringing from twenty to thirty feet.
c. To hang like a string, be stretched in a string or loose line, from.
1885. Howells, Silas Lapham (1891), I. 259. Her eldest daughter … lounged into the parlour … with her wrap stringing from her arm.
1898. Sir G. Robertson, Chitrál, xvi. 181. The British officers … blundered slowly through the torrent with a straggling line of Sepoys stringing from the ponies’ tails.
13. Of a viscous or glutinous substance: To form into strings, become stringy.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 1267. Let it [material for varnish] boil until it will string very strong.
1850. Holtzapffel, Turning, III. 1385. Let it boil until it strings freely between the fingers.
14. Billiards. † a. trans. See quot. and KING sb. 9 d. Obs.
1680. Cotton, Compl. Gamester (ed. 2), 23. If the Follower intend to hit his Adversaries Ball, or pass at one stroke he must string his Ball, that is, lay it even with the King.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 262/2.
b. intr. See quot. 1896.
[1788: cf. stringing-nail, STRINGING vbl. sb. 3.]
1814. C. Jones, Hoyle’s Games Impr., 373. Rules…. 1. String for the lead and choice of balls.
1839. Kentfield, Billiards, 29. In commencing the game, string for the lead.
1896. W. Broadfoot, Billiards, iii. (Badm. Libr.), 106. To string is to play from baulk to the top cushion so as to leave player’s ball near the baulk-line or bottom cushion as may be selected. Before a match the players string simultaneously for choice of balls, and for the option of commencing the game.
15. trans. To fool, deceive, humbug. U.S. slang.
1901. S. J. Weyman, in Munsey’s Mag., XXIV. 930/2. ‘Holy smoke, but some one has been stringin’ those reporters!’ thought Dan.
1910. W. Churchill, Mod. Chron., I. ix. 114. I watched you last night when you were stringing the Vicomte.
