Streaming

How to spell streaming

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce streaming

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does streaming mean?

1. nounThe continuous delivery of audio, video, or data over the internet so it can be played as it arrives.
2. verbFlowing or pouring out in a continuous current.
3. nounThe practice of grouping school pupils into classes according to their ability.

Streaming in a sentence

• noun

  The household pays for three different streaming services every month.

• verb

  Sunlight was streaming through the open curtains by seven o'clock.

• noun

  The school abandoned streaming and now teaches mixed-ability classes.

• noun

  Poor broadband makes streaming a film almost impossible in the evening.

• verb

  With the cold she had tears streaming down her face all morning.

• noun

  Parents debated whether streaming helped or held back their children.

Where does streaming come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the Old English noun 'stream', which meant a current or a flowing body of water and traces back to a Germanic root shared with Dutch 'stroom' and German 'Strom'. The underlying ancient sense is simply 'that which flows', and from the earliest records 'stream' could describe water, light, blood, or any continuous outpouring. The '-ing' ending, a native English suffix, turned the verb 'to stream' into both a present participle (water streaming downhill) and a verbal noun (the streaming of tears). For most of its life the word stayed firmly tied to physical flow, but in the late twentieth century technologists borrowed the flowing image for data delivered in a continuous current, giving us the now-dominant sense of streaming music and video. Because the spelling is phonetically regular, the only real trap is remembering the single 'm' before the '-ing', since the short vowel might tempt a doubled letter.

How the word is built

• stream (Old English stream: a flowing body of water)
• -ing (forming a noun or present participle)