stringer
Americannoun
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stringers
plural
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a person or thing that strings.
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a long horizontal timber connecting upright posts.
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Architecture. string.
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Civil Engineering. a longitudinal bridge girder for supporting part of a deck or railroad track between bents or piers.
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a longitudinal reinforcement in the fuselage or wing of an airplane.
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Also called string correspondent. Journalism. a part-time newspaper correspondent covering a local area for a paper published elsewhere.
The Los Angeles paper has a correspondent in San Francisco but only a stringer in Seattle.
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a stout string, rope, etc., strung through the gills and mouth of newly caught fish, so that they may be carried or put back in the water to keep them alive or fresh.
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a contestant, player, or other person ranked according to skill or accomplishment (used in combination).
Most of the conductors at the opera house were third-stringers.
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Mining. a small vein or seam of ore, coal, etc.
noun
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architect
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a long horizontal beam that is used for structural purposes
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another name for stringboard
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nautical a longitudinal structural brace for strengthening the hull of a vessel
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a journalist retained by a newspaper or news service on a part-time basis to cover a particular town or area
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of stringer
late Middle English word dating back to 1375–1425; see origin at string, -er 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“He’d tie that stringer around my hand and let the fish pull me around the creek.”
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
She started her career as a stringer for the Chicago Tribune, covering local government in the city’s northern suburbs during the 2009 recession.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 2, 2026
Dominoes fall quickly and hard for 33-year-old budding reporter Sara Byrne, assigned as a freelance stringer by the fictional London Tribune to cover the 2012 Gaza War.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2025
Whether it is providing detailed insight about an Australian Open opponent or carrying his racquets to the stringer, Andy Murray has got Novak Djokovic's back.
From BBC ● Jan. 23, 2025
He pulled his stringer from his pocket and strung the fish on it.
From "Mississippi Trial, 1955" by Chris Crowe
RFA laid off its stringers in Myanmar a day before a devastating March earthquake.
From Barron's ● Oct. 29, 2025
The Associated Press also has local Palestinian stringers, and my review of its hundreds of stories on the war this year revealed a total of two deeply reported pieces on Hamas—neither datelined from Gaza.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2025
Cascadia Daily News, which publishes a weekly newspaper and daily report online, now has a staff of 10, plus stringers and freelancers, Executive Editor Ron Judd said.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 14, 2022
The builders of dams and stringers of wires never forget their feats of engineering.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 15, 2022
The Preacher said, “True, if you figure a tenth by numbers, but I was thinking of figuring a tenth by age. Let me hold on to both of those stringers for a minute.”
From "Elijah of Buxton" by Christopher Paul Curtis
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