streamer

English

Etymology

From Middle English stremer, stremere, equivalent to stream +‎ -er.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈstɹiːmə(ɹ)/

  • Audio (UK):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -iːmə(ɹ)

Noun

streamer (plural streamers)

1. A long, narrow flag, or piece of material used or seen as a decoration.
   • 1667, John Dryden, Annus Mirabilis: The Year of Wonders, 1666. […], London: […] Henry Herringman, […], →OCLC, (please specify the stanza number):

     Brave Rupert from afar appears, / Whose waving streamers the glad general knows.

   • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “Afterglow”, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 168:

     Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.

2. Strips of paper or other material used as confetti.
3. (journalism) A newspaper headline that runs along the top of a page.
4. (computing) A data storage system, mainly used to produce backups, in which large quantities of data are transferred to a continuously moving tape; a tape drive.
5. (networking) Any mechanism for streaming data.
   • 2004, Cevdet Aykanat, Tugrul Dayar, Ibrahim Korpeoglu, Computer and Information Sciences - ISCIS 2004: 19th International Symposium (page 157)

     However, integration of a bandwidth estimation algorithm into an adaptive video streamer is not an easy task. Firstly, bandwidth estimation requires sending extra burst packets that brings a considerable overhead into the system.

6. (Internet) A person who streams activities on their computer (especially video gaming) to a live online audience.

   Most streamers are on Twitch

   Hypernym: creator

   • 2020 December 18, Taylor Lorenz, “In 2020, These Things Came Out on Top”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     There was perhaps no group of creators more prepared for the horrors of 2020 than streamers. Sitting in front of their cameras, often alone, talking for hours to the camera is what they do, and many are excellent at it.

7. (fishing) In fly fishing, a variety of wet fly designed to mimic a minnow.
8. (mining) One who searches for stream tin.
9. A stream or column of light shooting upward from the horizon, constituting one of the forms of the aurora borealis.
   • 1888, James Russell Lowell, Heartsease and Rue

     While overhead the North's dumb streamers shoot.

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     The moon was indeed at the full, and the northern streamers were shining brilliantly.

Translations

long narrow flag

• Bulgarian: вимпел m (vimpel)
• Danish: vimpel c, fanebånd n (military campaign honour)
• French: fanion (fr) m
• Maori: matairangi, pūhihi
• Polish: proporzec (pl) m, proporczyk (pl) m, wimpel m
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Russian: вы́мпел (ru) m (výmpel) (flag), полоса́ (ru) f (polosá)
• Sicilian: nzareḍḍi, nzagareḍḍi (both plural)
• Swedish: vimpel (sv) c, serpentin (sv) c

paper

• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Spanish: serpentina (es) f

newspaper headline that runs across the entire page

• Russian: ша́пка (ru) f (šápka)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

data storage system

• Russian: стри́мер (ru) m (strímer)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

a person who streams on internet

• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

variety of wet fly in fly fishing

• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

See also

• stream

Anagrams

• masterer, remaster, restream

Further reading

• “streamer”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “streamer”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “streamer”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “streamer”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.