1. Of the nature of a streak or streaks; occurring in, consisting of, streaks.
1670. G. Harvey, Little Venus Unmask’d, 46. Virulent Whites, being thick streeky, and sometimes thin, sharp, and gnawing.
1687. Dryden, Hind & P., III. 1293. For now the streaky light began to peep. Ibid. (1700), Fables, Flower & Leaf, 586. The Life is in the Leaf, and still between The Fits of falling Snows appears the streaky Green.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), VIII. 156. The paint lying in streaky seams.
1821. Joanna Baillie, Metr. Leg., Wallace, x. As lightning … At first but like a streaky line In the hush’d sky.
1849. Cupples, Green Hand, xiii. (1856), 123. The line of the horizon … with a streaky white haze overlying it.
1916. Connoisseur, Aug., 239/1. The latter [picture] was somewhat reminiscent of Gainsborough in the streaky handling of the sky and foliage.
2. Marked with streaks; streaked.
1745. T. Warton, Pleas. Melancholy, 72. The blushes of the streaky west.
1811. Self Instructor, 519. Ivory … coarse grained or fine, streaky or the contrary.
1862. Calverley, Verses & Transl. (ed. 2), 2. When I … sent those streaky lollipops home for your fairy suction.
1872. J. H. Gurney, Andersson’s Birds Damara Land, 183. Poliospiza gularis (Smith). Streaky-headed Grosbeak.
1883. Hardwich’s Photogr. Chem. (ed. 9), 331. The Print Marbled and Streaky.—These defects are often seen before the print is toned, if so, reject the prints.
b. Of flesh-meat, esp. bacon: Having lean and fat in alternate streaks.
1838. Dickens, O. Twist, xvii. The layers of red and white in a side of streaky bacon.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xxviii. Good streaky beef, really mingled with fat and lean.
3. fig. Variable, uneven (in character or quality); changeable, uncertain (in operation or activity). colloq.
1898. Bartram, Whiteheaded Boy, x. 216. I believe Finoucane to have been, as regards courage, what I should call ‘streaky.’
1899. A. C. Benson, Life E. W. Benson, I. iv. 117. The incongruous and streaky additions [to the school-buildings].
1899. Daily News, 4 Oct., 3/2. The wind, however, was streaky, and did not hit the boats at the same time.
1903. Westm. Gaz., 7 July, 3/1. Raphael did not begin well, his first thirty or forty runs being very streaky.
4. slang. a. Irritable, ill-tempered. b. U.S. = STREAKED 2.
1848. in Bartlett, Dict. Amer., s.v. Streaked, I never did feel so streaky and mean before.
1860. Hotten’s Slang Dict., 229. Streaky, irritated, ill-tempered.
a. 1872. in Schele de Vere, Americanisms, 637. A man needn’t be afraid to feel streaky, when his mule’s about giving out and the Ingins begin to yell like a pack of coyotes.
Hence Streakily adv.; Streakiness.
a. 1750. A. Hill, Wks. (1753), II. 185. I … walked homeward, in the brownness of the night, which had shadowed over the fields, with a melancholy streakiness, from the paleness of the moonshine.
1873. Besant & Rice, My Little Girl, I. ix. 224. He has no perception of the beauties of nature, save in the streakiness of beef; none of those of art, save in the cookshops.
1874. J. Fergusson, St. Paul’s, in Contemp. Rev., Oct., 759. It shows that what was meant to suggest strength is a mere sham, only a little bit of inlay, which, besides its streakiness, violates every principle of … construction.
1885. C. G. W. Lock, Workshop Rec., Ser. IV. 390/2. It would be next to impossible to obtain a coating perfectly free from streakiness.
1896. Brit. Birds, Their Nests & Eggs, I. 111. They [the eggs] are dull greenish-white, mottled, or streakily spotted with olive.
