Stringer

Also 5 strenger, strynger, 6 -ar. [f. STRING v. and sb. + -ER¹.]

  1.  One who makes strings for bows. ? Obs.

1420.  in York Memor. Bk., II. (Surtees), 122. Stryngers. Inprimis, pro bona regula … habenda in arte quadam, que vocatur stryngercrafte.

1541.  Act 33 Hen. VIII., c. 9 § 1. The Bowers, Fletchers, Stringers and Arrowehedmakers of this your Realme.

1545.  Ascham, Toxoph., II. (Arb.), 110. Now what a stringe ought to be made on, whether of good hempe…, or of flaxe or of silke, I leaue that to the iugemente of stringers, of whome we muste bye them on.

1688.  R. Holme, Armoury, III. 106/1. The Crest of the Bow-String Maker, commonly called the Stringers of the City of Chester.

  b.  The workman who fits a musical instrument (now esp. a piano) with strings.

1842.  Penny Mag., April, 173/1. The workmen called ‘stringers’ fix the proper strings to the proper pins.

1898.  Daily Chron., 14 Oct., 10/6. Pianoforte.—Stringer and chipper-up wanted.

  2.  † a. One who winds thread on a bobbin. Obs.^–0 b. One who threads (beads and the like) on a string. rare^–0.

1598.  Florio, Accauigliatore, a stringer of silke.

1850.  Ogilvie, Stringer, one who arranges on a string, or thread; a bead or pearl stringer.

  3.  fig. One who strings words together. Also with together, up.

1774.  Univ. Mag., April, 189/1. When the stringer up of a love-song condescends to take the pen.

1829.  Blackw. Mag., XXVI. 915. Their great speakers were at best but stringers-together of good-for-nothing words.

1901.  R. Garnett, Ess., xi. 313. A polisher and stringer of epigrammatic sayings.

  † 4.  A fornicator, wencher. Obs.

  App. the speaker’s perversion of striker: see STRIKER 2 d.

1611.  Beaum. & Fl., Knt. Burning Pestle, I. (1613), B 4. Wife. A whoreson tyrant has ben an old stringer in’s daies I warrant him.

  5.  Build., etc. a. A horizontal timber connecting uprights in a framework, supporting a floor, or the like; a tie or tie-beam.

1838.  Civil Engin. & Arch. Jrnl., I. 150/1. These piles were connected on the inside by a pine stringer one foot square.

1893.  A. Hill, in Scribner’s Mag., June, 697/1. A plank sidewalk…, resting on the ordinary stringers, could be built from the earth to the moon, 240,000 miles.

  b.  Shipbuilding. An inside strake of planking or plating, secured to the ribs and supporting the ends of the beams.

1830.  Hedderwick, Mar. Archit., 130. Stringers, strakes of planks wrought round the inside at the height of the under side of the beams.

1842.  Civil Engin. & Arch. Jrnl., V. 394/2. The iron gunwale stringer is formed of plate ¹/₄ in. thick, and from 9 to 11 in. broad.

1867.  Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Stringers, a name sometimes applied to shelf-pieces…. Also, heavy timber similarly carried round a ship to fortify her for special heavy service, as whaling, &c.

1874.  Thearle, Naval Archit., 331. Stringers are of two kinds, viz., hold and deck stringers.

  attrib.  1869.  Sir E. Reed, Shipbuild., ix. 161. All vessels to have stringer-plates upon the ends of each tier of beams.

1883.  Nares, Constr. Ironclad, 6. Stringer plates are used to strengthen the ship longitudinally. These are iron plates laid along the end of the deck beams, and fastened to them and the frames.

  c.  A string-piece supporting a staircase.

1883.  Law Rep., 8 Appeal Cases 450. Cutting a groove in the … wall, and inserting in it one of the wooden stringers supporting the stair.

  d.  U.S. A longitudinal railway sleeper.

1881.  Le Conte, Sight, 142. Parallel lines of all kinds, such as railway stringers, bridge timbers, &c.

1902.  A. C. Williams, in Munsey’s Mag., XXVI. 601/2. The fuel consisted of parts of the Tarlac station house and some hard-wood stringers.

  e.  The heavy squared timber carried along the edge of a wharf-front; cf. string-piece (STRING sb. 32).

1899.  L. Becke, in Pall Mall Gaz., 26 Dec., 2/1. Tom sat down on a wharf stringer, dangling his feet.

  6.  Mining and Geol. A narrow vein of mineral traversing a mass of different material.

1874.  Raymond, 6th Rep. Mines, 32. This indicates that the present deposits are stringers or exflorescences [sic] of larger deposits.

1882.  Rep. Prec. Met. U.S., 275. In the main vein is found a stringer of silver nearly pure.

  7.  U.S. A stick or switch used to string fish on.

1893.  J. E. Gunckel, in Outing, XXII. 88/2. But, though he had several strikes, his stringer remained dry in his pocket.

  8.  pl. Handcuffs. slang.

1893.  Kipling, Many Invent., My Lord the Elephant. The corp’ril of the gyard … unlocked my stringers, an’ he sez: ‘If it comes to runnin’, run for your life.’