Also 5–8 strond, 8 strang, 8–9 dial. stran, 9 Sc. strawn. [Of obscure origin; connection with STRAIN sb.3, or with OF. estran, estren rope, is not proved.]
1. Each of the strings or yarns which when twisted together or ‘laid’ form a rope, cord, line or cable. Also, a ply (of worsted). dial. Also attrib., as three strand rope.
1497. Naval Acc. Hen. VII. (1896), 244. ij cabulles … of iiij strondes…, iiij hawsers … wherof oon of iij Strondes.
1627. Capt. Smith, Sea Gram., v. 26. The Wall knot … is a round knob, so made with the strouds [sic] or layes of a rope, it cannot slip. Ibid., ix. 43.
1644. Manwayring, Seamans Dict., 18. A Cabell is a three-strand Roape.
1674. Ray, S. & E. C. Words, Strand, one of the twists of a line; be it of horsehair or ought else. Suss.
1755. Magens, Insurances, I. 182. They were obliged to cut a Cable of four Strangs to Pieces.
1794. Morse, Amer. Geog., 425. Machinery, to … spin flax and hemp into threads or yarns, fit for … sail cloth, oznabrigs, twine, and the strans or yarns for cordage.
1800. Naval Chron., III. 474. Three strond shroud-laid rope.
1821. J. Smyth, Pract. of Customs (1821), 74. Every Cable … is composed of three strands, every strand of three ropes, and every rope of three twists.
1898. Mrs. C. P. Penberthy, Warp & Woof of Cornish Life, ii. 13. I darned the hole with worsterd, and twas blue, dark blue worsterd, and twas five strans thick.
transf. 1863. Bates, Nat. Amazons, I. ii. 47. Some [tree-stems] were twisted in strands like cables.
fig. 1816. Scott, Antiq., xix. The three strands of the conversation, to speak the language of a rope work, were again twined together into one undistinguishable string of confusion.
1855. Tennyson, Maud, I. XVIII. vii. The dusky strand of Death inwoven here with dear Love’s tie, makes Love himself more dear.
b. Each of the lengths of twisted wire used to form a wire-rope, cable, or electric conductor.
1860. Chamb. Encycl., I. 522/1. The [Atlantic] cable … was composed of a strand of seven wires of pure copper, coated with … gutta percha,… and finally bound round with iron wires.
1875. Bedford, Sailor’s Pocket Bk., x. 313. Wire rope usually consists of 6 strands round a hempen core; each strand consists of 6 wires round a smaller hempen core.
1891. Pall Mall Gaz., 16 March, 2/1. A special form of cable has been laid, consisting of four conductors each composed of a strand of seven copper wires.
2. Each of the threads or strips of a woven or plaited material; hence a thread or strip drawn from such material.
1802–12. Bentham, Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827), II. 691. When, instead of the G. R., comes the broad arrow on timber, or the strand in sail cloth, then comes the doubt … as between written and real evidence.
1878. Huxley, Physiogr., 71. Connected by means of a strand of cotton with a small reservoir of water.
1914. Daily News, 30 Sept., 3. [I] had to pull a strand of good Irish homespun from my coat before I could lash it to the mast-head.
fig. 1868. Nettleship, Ess. Browning’s Poetry, v. 130. A garment in which fear made many strands.
1904. S. H. Butcher, Harvard Lect., 195. The Platonic dialogues are another case in point. Several strands of thought are here subtly interwoven.
3. Transferred senses.
a. A string of beads, pearls, and the like; also the material on which they are strung.
1825. Jamieson, s.v., A strawn of beads.
1860. Whittier, Truce of Piscataqua, 46. In his wigwam … Sits a woman all alone, Wampum beads and birchen strands Dropping from her careless hands.
1876. Surrey Gloss., Strand, a stalk of grass. The children make what they call a strand of strawberries, i.e. they take a long stalk and thread it full of them.
1886. Sheldon, trans. Flaubert’s Salammbô, 14. Strands of pearls attached to her temples.
b. A barb or fiber of a feather. (Cf. STRAIN sb.3 3.)
1847. Stoddart, Angler’s Comp., 93. Hoffland’s Fancy [fly]…. Body: reddish, dark brown silk, red hackle, two or three strands of ditto for tail.
c. A tress or a filament of hair.
1870. Echo, 19 Oct. His long hair, not unconscious of a grey strand, hangs over a forehead lofty and massive.
1904. H. G. Wells, Food of Gods, I. ii. 233. The breeze had stolen a strand or so of her hair too.
1915. Q. Rev., Oct., 359. Four hundred years after her death … they [Junot’s soldiers] found among her bones the thick strands of the marvellous yellow hair which the old books tell of.
d. A thread or filament in animal or vegetable structure.
1877. Foster, Phys., III. i. (1878), 394. A sensory nerve in its simplest form may be regarded as a strand of eminently irritable protoplasm.
1879. Calderwood, Mind & Brain, 50. Molecular changes in the brain are consequent upon impulses propagated along the strands of nerve fibres.
1887. Garnsey & Balfour, De Bary’s Fungi, 18. The hyphae form by their union elongated branching strands (fibrous or fibrillose mycelia).
1904. Gulland, in Brit. Med. Jrnl., 10 Sept., 583/1. The strands and nodes of the cytoplasmic reticulum which traverse this ground substance vary a great deal in thickness and in closeness of apposition.
e. Each of the pieces into which a strip of metal is divided by slitting (see quot.).
1876. Encycl. Brit., IV. 218/1. The metal for wire drawing is rolled into long strips … and cut into ‘strands’ by means of slitting rolls.
4. Comb.: strand ground (see quot.); strand-hook, a hook to which strands of cordage are fastened in the process of tempering; also attrib.
1882. Caulfeild & Saward, Dict. Needlework, 463/1. *Strand ground. This ground is used to connect sprays of Honiton Lace, and is formed of irregular Bars made on the Pillow and with two Bobbins.
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 431. Thus bringing all the strands to an equal tension, without one *strand-hook making more revolutions than another. Ibid. The strand hook spindles … are so contrived, for the tempering of the strands, that any one or more of them may … be made to slide.
