stringer
Americannoun
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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
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.
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
Then it was back to collecting Djokovic's racquets and taking them to the stringer.
From BBC • Jan. 23, 2025
Video from the stringer service OC Hawk showed a bearded man sitting in the stopped self-driving vehicle, poking his head out and speaking to police.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 2, 2025
She moved to Jerusalem in 1966, at age 20, and lived there through two wars and one peace treaty, working as a journalist for The Jerusalem Post and as a stringer for Time magazine.
From New York Times • May 7, 2024
The keepers he put on a stringer, a woven cord with a three-inch nail tied to its end, anchored with a rock on the riverside.
From "Mississippi Trial, 1955" by Chris Crowe
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
