streak

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A line, mark, smear, or band differentiated by color or texture from its surroundings.
• noun An inherent, often contrasting quality.
• noun A ray or flash of light.
• noun A brief run or stretch, as of luck.
• noun An unbroken series, as of wins or losses.
• noun Mineralogy The color of the fine powder produced when a mineral is rubbed against a hard surface. Used as a distinguishing characteristic.
• noun Botany Any of various viral diseases of plants characterized by the appearance of discolored stripes on the leaves or stems.
• noun Microbiology A sample of microorganisms that has been introduced into a solid culture medium by a needle drawn across its surface.
• intransitive verb To mark with streaks.
• intransitive verb To make streaks of a different, usually lighter color in (hair) using a chemical preparation.
• intransitive verb Microbiology To inoculate (a culture medium) with a streak.
• intransitive verb To form streaks.
• intransitive verb To be or become streaked.
• intransitive verb To move at high speed; rush.
• intransitive verb To run naked in public, especially as a prank.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To run swiftly.
• To put a streak upon or in; break up the surface of by one or more streaks.
• To stretch; extend.
• To lay out, as a dead body.
• To stretch out; shoot, as a rocket or a shooting-star.
• noun In turpentine-making, the portion of a bled pine-tree from which the resin exudes.
• noun A line, band, or stripe of somewhat irregular shape.
• noun In mineralogy, the line or mark of fine powder produced when a mineral is scratched, or when it is rubbed upon a hard, rough surface, as that of unglazed porcelain.
• noun In zoology, a color-mark of considerable length for its width, and generally less firm and regular than a stripe. See streaked, streaky, and compare stripe, 1.
• noun Figuratively, a trait; a vein; a turn of character or disposition; a whim.
• noun Nautical, same as strake, 6.
• noun A rung of a ladder.
• noun A short piece of iron, six of which form the wheel-tire of a wooden artillery-carriage.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb Obs. or Prov. Eng. & Scot. To stretch; to extend; hence, to lay out, as a dead body.
• noun A line or long mark of a different color from the ground; a stripe; a vein.
• noun (Shipbuilding) A strake.
• noun (Min.) The fine powder or mark yielded by a mineral when scratched or rubbed against a harder surface, the color of which is sometimes a distinguishing character.
• noun obsolete The rung or round of a ladder.
• transitive verb To form streaks or stripes in or on; to stripe; to variegate with lines of a different color, or of different colors.
• transitive verb colloq. With it as an object: To run swiftly.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun An irregular line left from smearing or motion.
• noun A continuous series of like events.
• noun The color of the powder of a mineral. So called, because a simple field test for a mineral is to streak it against unglazed white porcelain.
• noun A moth of the family Geometridae Chesias legatella.
• noun A tendency or characteristic, but not a dominant or pervasive one.
• verb intransitive to have or obtain streaks.
• verb intransitive, slang to run naked in public
• verb transitive to create streaks
• verb transitive To move very swiftly.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a narrow marking of a different color or texture from the background
• verb run naked in a public place
• noun a sudden flash (as of lightning)
• verb mark with spots or blotches of different color or shades of color as if stained
• noun an unbroken series of events