1. [n]  the act of flowing or streaming; continuous progression
2. [n]  a steady flow (usually from natural causes); "the raft floated downstream on the current"; "he felt a stream of air"
3. [n]  dominant course (suggestive of running water) of successive events or ideas; "two streams of development run through American history"; "stream of consciousness"; "the flow of thought"; "the current of history"
4. [n]  a natural body of running water flowing on or under the earth
5. [n]  something that resembles a flowing stream in moving continuously; "a stream of people emptied from the terminal"; "the museum had planned carefully for the flow of visitors"
6. [v]  exude profusely; "She was streaming with sweat"; "His nose streamed blood"
7. [v]  move in large numbers; "people were pouring out of the theater"; "beggars pullulated in the plaza"
8. [v]  flow freely and abundantly; "Tears streamed down her face"
9. [v]  to extend, wave or float outward, as if in the wind; "their manes streamed like stiff black pennants in the wind."
10. [v]  rain heavily; "Put on your rain coat-- it's pouring outside!"

Stream
Stream

more details ...

1. \Stream\ (str[=e]m), n. [AS. stre['a]m; akin to OFries.
   str[=a]m, OS. str[=o]m, D. stroom, G. strom, OHG. stroum,
   str[=u]m, Dan. & Sw. str["o]m, Icel. straumr, Ir. sroth,
   Lith. srove, Russ. struia, Gr. "ry`sis a flowing, "rei^n to
   flow, Skr. sru. [root]174. Cf. {Catarrh}, {Diarrhea},
   {Rheum}, {Rhythm}.]
   1. A current of water or other fluid; a liquid flowing
      continuously in a line or course, either on the earth, as
      a river, brook, etc., or from a vessel, reservoir, or
      fountain; specifically, any course of running water; as,
      many streams are blended in the Mississippi; gas and steam
      came from the earth in streams; a stream of molten lead
      from a furnace; a stream of lava from a volcano.
   2. A beam or ray of light. ``Sun streams.'' --Chaucer.
   3. Anything issuing or moving with continued succession of
      parts; as, a stream of words; a stream of sand. ``The
      stream of beneficence.'' --Atterbury. ``The stream of
      emigration.'' --Macaulay.
   4. A continued current or course; as, a stream of weather.
      ``The very stream of his life.'' --Shak.
   5. Current; drift; tendency; series of tending or moving
      causes; as, the stream of opinions or manners.
   {Gulf stream}. See under {Gulf}.
   {Stream anchor}, {Stream cable}. (Naut.) See under {Anchor},
      and {Cable}.
   {Stream ice}, blocks of ice floating in a mass together in
      some definite direction.
   {Stream tin}, particles or masses of tin ore found in
      alluvial ground; -- so called because a stream of water is
      the principal agent used in separating the ore from the
      sand and gravel.
   {Stream works} (Cornish Mining), a place where an alluvial
      deposit of tin ore is worked. --Ure.
   {To float with the stream}, figuratively, to drift with the
      current of opinion, custom, etc., so as not to oppose or
      check it.
   Syn: Current; flow; rush; tide; course.
   Usage: {Stream}, {Current}. These words are often properly
          interchangeable; but stream is the broader word,
          denoting a prevailing onward course. The stream of the
          Mississippi rolls steadily on to the Gulf of Mexico,
          but there are reflex currents in it which run for a
          while in a contrary direction.
   

2. \Stream\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Streamed}; p. pr. & vb. n.
   {Streaming}.]
   1. To issue or flow in a stream; to flow freely or in a
      current, as a fluid or whatever is likened to fluids; as,
      tears streamed from her eyes.
            Beneath those banks where rivers stream. --Milton.
   2. To pour out, or emit, a stream or streams.
            A thousand suns will stream on thee.  --Tennyson.
   3. To issue in a stream of light; to radiate.
   4. To extend; to stretch out with a wavy motion; to float in
      the wind; as, a flag streams in the wind.
   

3. \Stream\, v. t.
   To send forth in a current or stream; to cause to flow; to
   pour; as, his eyes streamed tears.
         It may so please that she at length will stream Some
         dew of grace into my withered heart.     --Spenser.
   2. To mark with colors or embroidery in long tracts.
            The herald's mantle is streamed with gold. --Bacon.
   3. To unfurl. --Shak.
   {To stream the buoy}. (Naut.) See under {Buoy}.
   

1. ["STREAM: A Scheme Language for Formally Describing Digital Circuits", C.D. Kloos in PARLE: Parallel Architectures and Languages Europe, LNCS 259, Springer 1987].

2. 1. An abstraction referring to any flow of data from a source (or sender, producer) to a single sink (or receiver, consumer). A stream usually flows through a channel of some kind, as opposed to packets which may be addressed and routed independently, possibly to multiple recipients. Streams usually require some mechanism for establishing a channel or a "connection" between the sender and receiver.

   2. In the C language's buffered input/ouput library functions, a stream is associated with a file or device which has been opened using fopen. Characters may be read from (written to) a stream without knowing their actual source (destination) and buffering is provided transparently by the library routines.

   3. Confusingly, Sun have called their modular device driver mechanism "STREAMS".

   4. In IBM's AIX operating system, a stream is a full-duplex processing and data transfer path between a driver in kernel space and a process in user space.

   [IBM AIX 3.2 Communication Programming Concepts, SC23-2206-03].

   5. streaming.

   6. lazy list.

1. Swiftly flowing stream reach with little surface agitation and no major flow obstructions. Often appears as a flooded riffle. (Compare glide; riffle; rapids.)
2. A stream is a body of water that flows at least periodically or intermittently through a bed or channel having banks and supports fish or other aquatic life. This includes watercourses having a surface or subsurface flow that supports or has supported riparian vegetation.