fiber

especially British, fi·bre

[fahy-ber]

noun

1. a fine, threadlike piece, as of cotton, jute, or asbestos.

2. a slender filament.

   a fiber of platinum.

3. filaments collectively.

4. matter or material composed of filaments.

   a plastic fiber.

5. something resembling a filament.

6. an essential character, quality, or strength.

   people of strong moral fiber.

7. Botany.

   1. filamentous matter from the bast tissue or other parts of plants, used for industrial purposes.

   2. a slender, threadlike root of a plant.

   3. a slender, tapered cell which, with like cells, serves to strengthen tissue.

8. Anatomy, Zoology.,  a slender, threadlike element or cell, as of nerve, muscle, or connective tissue.

9. Also called bulk, dietary fiber, roughage. Nutrition.

   1. the structural part of plants and plant products that consists of carbohydrates, as cellulose and pectin, that are wholly or partially indigestible and when eaten stimulate peristalsis in the intestine.

   2. food containing a high amount of such carbohydrates, as whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.

10. Chemistry.,  vulcanized fiber.

11. Optics.,  optical fiber.

fiber

/ ˈfaɪbə /

noun

1. the usual US spelling of fibre

fiber

1. The parts of grains, fruits, and vegetables that contain cellulose and are not digested by the body. Fiber helps the intestines absorb water, which increases the bulk of the stool and causes it to move more quickly through the colon.

2. One of the elongated, thick-walled cells, often occurring in bundles, that give strength and support to tissue in vascular plants. Fibers are one type of sclerenchyma cell.

3. Any of the elongated cells of skeletal or cardiac muscle, made up of slender threadlike structures called myofibrils.

4. The axon of a neuron.

Other Word Forms

• fiberless adjective
• interfiber adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of fiber¹

1350–1400; 1970–75 fiber for def. 9; Middle English fibre (< Middle French ) < Latin fibra filament

Example Sentences

Whitney’s 1793 invention of the cotton gin, a machine that removed seeds easily from the plant’s white, fluffy fibers, allowed one person to do the work of dozens of people using their hands.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

By attaching small copper oxide particles to carbon fibers, they were able to observe how the material responds when the applied voltage becomes increasingly negative.

Read more on Science Daily

If that doesn’t change, hyperscalers may find themselves sitting on hundreds of gigawatts of computing power with no useful purpose—echoing the “dark fiber” era of the early 2000s that followed the dot-com collapse.

Read more on Barron's

The boat occupants were contractors working on an underwater fiber optic cable.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Rodents achieve a similar effect with wavy nerve fibers that add flexibility.

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Related Words

• grain 
• thread 
• tissue