Upstream

How to spell upstream

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce upstream

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does upstream mean?

1. adverbIn or toward the direction against the current of a river, toward its source.
2. adjectiveRelating to the early extraction and production stages of an industry, especially oil and gas, rather than refining or distribution.

Upstream in a sentence

• adverb

  The salmon swim upstream to reach their spawning grounds.

• adjective

  The company invested heavily in its upstream exploration projects.

• adverb

  We paddled upstream for an hour before stopping to rest.

• adjective

  Falling crude prices squeezed profits across the upstream sector.

Where does upstream come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Upstream is a transparent compound of two very old native English elements, 'up' and 'stream', and it means quite literally 'toward the up end of the stream', that is, against the current toward the source. Both halves descend from Old English: 'up' goes back to Old English 'upp', shared across the Germanic languages, while 'stream' comes from Old English 'stream', meaning a flowing body of water, related to Dutch 'stroom' and German 'Strom'. The combined adverb settled into regular use in the early modern period as a plain way of describing movement against a river's flow. Because it is built from two familiar words, the spelling holds no hidden surprise, and the only thing to remember is that it is written as one solid word with no hyphen. In modern usage it has also taken on figurative life, describing the early extraction stages of the oil and gas business and the region of a gene that lies before the point where reading begins.

How the word is built

• up- (directional adverb/prefix: toward a higher point)
• stream (Old English stream: a flowing body of water)