string

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

• noun Material made of drawn-out, twisted fiber, used for fastening, tying, or lacing.
• noun A strand or cord of such material.
• noun A cord stretched on an instrument and struck, plucked, or bowed to produce tones.
• noun The section of a band or orchestra composed of stringed instruments, especially violins, violas, cellos, and double basses.
• noun Stringed instruments or their players considered as a group.
• noun Something resembling a string or appearing as a long, thin line.
• noun A plant fiber.
• noun Physics One of the extremely minute objects that form the basis of string theory.
• noun A set of objects threaded together or attached on a string.
• noun A number of objects arranged in a line.
• noun Computers A set of consecutive characters.
• noun A series of similar or related acts, events, or items: synonym: series.
• noun A set of animals, especially racehorses, belonging to a single owner; a stable.
• noun A scattered group of businesses under a single ownership or management.
• noun A group of players ranked according to ability within a team.
• noun A complete game consisting of ten frames in bowling.
• noun A stringboard.
• noun A stringcourse.
• noun Games The balk line in billiards.
• noun Informal A limiting or hidden condition. Often used in the plural.
• intransitive verb To fit or furnish with strings or a string.
• intransitive verb To stretch out or extend.
• intransitive verb To thread on a string.
• intransitive verb To arrange in a line or series.
• intransitive verb To fasten, tie, or hang with a string or strings.
• intransitive verb To strip (vegetables) of fibers.
• intransitive verb To extend or progress in a string, line, or succession.
• idiom (on a/the) Under one's complete control or influence.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A slender cord; a thick thread; a line; a twine; a narrow band, thong, or ribbon; also, anything which ties.
• noun A strip, as of leather, by which the covers of a book are held together.
• noun The line or cord of a bow.
• noun In musical instruments, a tightly stretched cord or wire by the vibration of which tones are produced.
• noun plural Stringed instruments, especially the stringed instruments of a band or orchestra taken collectively—that is, violins, violas, violoncellos, and double basses—in distinction from the wind and the percussives.
• noun Something resembling a string.
• noun In mining, a thin seam or branch of a lode; a small vein; a fissure filled with mineral or metalliferous matter, but wanting in regularity and permanence.
• noun A nerve or tendon of an animal body.
• noun A cord or thread on which anything is filed; a file; also, a set of things strung on a string or file: as, a string of beads; hence, any series of persons or things connected or following in succession; a series or succession of persons, animals, or things extending in a line.
• noun A drove or company of horses or steers; a stud.
• noun In billiards: A number of wooden buttons strung on a wire to keep the score or tally of the game.