[f. STREAM v. + -ING1.] The action of the verb in various senses; an instance of this.
1398. Trevisa, Earth. De P. R., VIII. xxviii. (1495), x vj. Arystotle sayth that lyghte is noo body, nother stremynge oute of a body.
1607. Hieron, Wks. (1614), I. 206. In a conuenient season, the veines of the earth are opened, and the dryed spring returneth to his former streaming.
1624. Gee, Foot out of Snare, xv. 97. This streaming of my pen from the fountaine of my heart.
1655. Gurnall, Chr. in Armour, I. 45. The streamings forth of divine grace.
a. 1716. South, Serm. (1842), III. 601. We should deal with these first streamings out of sin, as the Psalmist would have the people of God deal with the brats of Babylon.
1887. Besant, The World went, xv. II. 24. The women … who can afford it have ribbons round their hats, the streaming of which in the breeze greatly gratifies them.
† b. The Aurora Borealis. Obs. Cf. STREAMER sb. 3 d.
1694. Acc. Sev. Late Voy., II. (1711), 214. Nor should I much doubt to affirm, that it [this light] is that which is sometimes seen in England, and especially in the Northern parts, call’d Streaming.
1727. Derham, Lumen Boreale, in Phil. Trans., XXXIV. 245. There are two sorts of Streamings,… one, by way of Explosion from the Horizon; the other, by opening and shutting, [etc.].
c. Her. (See quot.)
1725. J. Coats, Dict. Her. (1739), 319. Streaming is the Term us’d to express the Stream of Light darting from a Comet, or Blazing Star, vulgarly call’d the Beard.
d. Mining. The washing of ore (usually tin-ore) from the detritus with which it is associated.
1778. W. Pryce, Min. Cornub., 134. It did not require any great degree of penetration, to have comprehended Streaming and Draining under one idea.
1802. Playfair, Illustr. Huttonian Theory, 110. Hence the streaming, as it is called, or washing of the earth to obtain the tin-stone from it.
1853. Ure, Dict. Arts (ed. 4), II. 859. The greatest quantity of tin has been produced by ‘streaming’ (as washing the debris in the valleys is termed).
e. Biol. A peculiar flowing motion or ‘rotation’ of protoplasm in a cell.
1875. Bennett & Dyer, trans. Sachs’ Bot., 38. In the sacs of the Characeæ the nucleus disappears altogether when the streaming (Strömung) of the protoplasm begins.
1880. Bessey, Bot., 6. In their plasmodia … many kinds of movements may be observed, the commonest of which is streaming.
1894. E. A. Minchin, trans. Bütschli’s Investig. Microsc. Foams, 122. The so-called rotational streaming of the protoplasm.
