[f. STRAND sb.4]
1. intr. Of a rope: To break one or more of its strands. Also trans., to break one or more of the strands of (a rope).
a. 1780. G. Gilbert, in Besant, Capt. Cook (1890), 169. The hawser we had reeved for that purpose being so rotten, that it stranded in five or six places as we were heaving.
1841. R. H. Dana, Seaman’s Man., 128. A rope is stranded when one of its strands is parted or broken by chafing or by a strain.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xii. (1856), 88. In another attempt a four-inch hawser will be stranded without producing the slightest effect.
2. trans. To form (a rope) by the twisting of strands.
1886. Encycl. Brit., XX. 846/1. Wire ropes are stranded … in machines which do not differ in essential features from the ordinary rope-making machinery.
3. To insert a strand or filament in (a texture). Also fig.
1911. Webster, Strand,… 3. To weave a strand in, as with a needle in mending a garment; as, to strand a stocking; to strand a hole or rent.
1914. Blackw. Mag., Nov., 581/2. He [Time] has … prettily stranded her black hair with grey.
Hence Stranding vbl. sb. (in quots. attrib.).
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 436. The backward movement of the stranding-sledge … towards the bottom of the rope-walk by which strands are drawn out.
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 17 April, 11/1. This work of binding the copper wires together is performed by a small ‘stranding machine.’
