stroke

Definitions

General English

  • noun a

    serious

    medical condition in

    which

    someone

    suddenly

    becomes

    unconscious

    because

    blood has stopped flowing normally to the

    brain

  • noun the act of hitting

    something

    such

    as a ball
  • verb to run

    your

    hands

    gently

    over

    something

    or

    someone

Aviation

  • noun any of a series of movements of a piston from one end of the limit of its

    movement

    to another

Cars & Driving

  • noun any of a series of continuous, often reciprocating, movements; a cycle
  • noun in a

    reciprocating engine

    , the distance between the highest and lowest points reached by the piston
  • verb to modify the stroke of an engine, by using a different

    crankshaft

    to increase or reduce displacement; stroking normally refers to an increase in cc

Computing

  • noun the width in pixels of a pen or brush used to draw on-screen
  • noun the thickness of a printed character

Construction

  • A run of

    clapboard

    on the side of a house.
  • A row of steel plates in a steel

    chimney

    .

Cricket

  • noun an act of hitting the ball, especially when the emphasis is on the way the ball is played rather than on the outcome; by contrast with shot, which makes no comment on the orthodoxy (or otherwise) of the way the ball is hit, the word ‘stroke’ suggests a gracefully executed, well-timed hit in which maximum effect is achieved by minimum force
    Citation ‘Wazir, like Nayadu, was a powerful right-hand bat who could play some very elegant strokes, including a charming cover-drive’ (Bose 1990)
    Citation ‘What was unusual, even unique, about Viswanath was the ridiculous ease with which he used to execute the

    late cut

    , intoxicatingly beautiful and the most difficult of all strokes’     (Haresh Pandya, Illustrated Weekly of India 20 April 1991)
  • noun a run; a notch marked on the scorer’s stick to indicate that a run has been scored
    Citation ‘On Tues., May 22, on Blackheath, London beat Greenwich by 15 strokes; London went in first and got 112 strokes the first hands’ (Whitehall Evening Post 26 May 1733)
  • verb to score runs by playing the ball with good timing and

    footwork

    , and with a graceful swing of the bat
    Citation ‘When the New Zealanders took the new ball on Thursday, Randall stroked

    four

    extraordinary boundaries in the first two overs’     (Robin Marlar, Sunday Times 28 August 1983)
    Citation ‘Left-hander Sanath Jayasuriya, maker of two double-centuries against Pakistan “A”, stroked an impressive 70-ball 66’ (David Frith, WCM October 1991)

Food

  • noun a sudden blockage or breaking of a blood vessel in the

    brain

    that can result in loss of consciousness, partial loss of movement or loss of speech

Media Studies

  • noun a short diagonal line (/) used to separate groups of numbers or in written text to mean ‘and’ or ‘or’

Medical

  • verb to touch something or someone softly with the fingers

Publishing

  • noun a

    basic

    curved or straight line that makes up a character

Sports

  • noun a style of

    swimming

    , using the arms and legs in a specific way
  • noun a single complete movement of the arms and legs when

    swimming

  • noun a single movement of the oars through the water
  • noun a rower in a

    racing

    boat who sets the pace for the crew
  • verb to hit or kick a ball smoothly
  • verb to row at a particular speed or rate of the oars

Origin & History of “stroke”

The

verb

stroke (OE) and the

noun

stroke (13th c.) are

different

words, but

they

come

ultimately

from

the

same

source – the prehistoric Germanic base *strīk-, *straik- ‘touch lightly’ (from

which

English

also

gets streak and strike). The verb has stayed

very

close semantically to its source, whereas the noun has followed the same path as its corresponding verb strike.
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