cords

Noun

cord (countable and uncountable, plural cords)

1. (countable) A long, thin, flexible length of twisted yarns (strands) of fibre (a rope, for example).
   • The burglar tied up the victim with a cord.

   Synonyms:

   cable, twine

2. (uncountable) Any quantity of such material when viewed as a mass or commodity.
   • He looped some cord around his fingers.

   Synonyms:

   cordage

3. A small flexible electrical conductor composed of wires insulated separately or in bundles and assembled together usually with an outer cover; the electrical cord of a lamp, sweeper ((US) vacuum cleaner), or other appliance.

   Synonyms:

   cable, flex

4. A unit of measurement for firewood, equal to 128 cubic feet (4 × 4 × 8 feet), composed of logs and/or split logs four feet long and none over eight inches diameter. It is usually seen as a stack four feet high by eight feet long.
   • Unerringly impelling this dead, impregnable, uninjurable wall, and this most buoyant thing within; there swims behind it all a mass of tremendous life, only to be adequately estimated as piled wood is—by the cord; and all obedient to one volition, as the smallest insect.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Battering-ram”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 376
   1. (broadly, collective) A quantity of firewood or cut logs.
5. (figuratively) Any influence by which persons are caught, held, or drawn, as if by a cord.
   • Clear-headed friend, whose joyful scorn, / Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain / The knots that tangle human creeds, / The wounding cords that bind and strain / The heart until it bleeds, […]1842, Alfred Tennyson, “To—”, in Poems. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 15

See all 11 meanings of cord