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streamline

[streem-lahyn]
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noun
  1. a teardrop line of contour offering the least possible resistance to a current of air, water, etc.
  2. the path of a particle that is flowing steadily and without turbulence in a fluid past an object.
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verb (used with object), stream·lined, stream·lin·ing.
  1. to make streamlined.
  2. to alter in order to make more efficient or simple.
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adjective
  1. streamlined.
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Origin of streamline

First recorded in 1870–75; stream + line1
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for streamline

Contemporary Examples

Historical Examples

  • The result was the first American "streamline" design for a shell.

  • Its purpose was to streamline the commercialization of a farm product, and in this effort it was highly successful.

    Frying Pan Farm

    Elizabeth Brown Pryor

  • They had streamline hulls and tails that embodied universal-jointed double fish-tail rudders.

    Armageddon--2419 A.D.

    Philip Francis Nowlan

  • "No wonder they streamline," he muttered as he saw the enormous force it took to drive the gigantic ship through this air.

    Invaders from the Infinite

    John Wood Campbell

  • The French had developed a mortar shell on the streamline principle which was invisible in flight and had twice the range of ours.

British Dictionary definitions for streamline

streamline

noun
  1. a contour on a body that offers the minimum resistance to a gas or liquid flowing around it
  2. an imaginary line in a fluid such that the tangent at any point indicates the direction of the velocity of a particle of the fluid at that point
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verb (tr)
  1. to make streamlined
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for streamline

n.

1868, "line drawn from point to point, so that its direction is everywhere that of the motion of the fluid" [Lamb, "Hydrodynamics," 1906], from stream (n.) + line (n.). The adjective is attested from 1898, "free from turbulence," 1907 in sense of "shaped so that the flow around it is smooth."

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v.

1913, "give a streamline form to," from streamline (n.). From 1936 in the extended sense of "simplify and organize." Related: Streamlined; streamlining.

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
streamline in Science

streamline

[strēm′līn′]
  1. To construct or reconstruct an object to reduce the amount of drag it undergoes as it moves through a fluid, especially air or water.
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The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
streamline in Culture

streamline

The line traced by a liquid or gas as it moves. Streamlines are most commonly used in describing the flow of a liquid or gas around a solid object.

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Note

A “streamlined” design is one in which objects that move through a gas or liquid are shaped to match these lines, and therefore reduce the energy required to produce that motion.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.