streak

/stɹiːk/

streak noun: an irregular line, as is left from smearing or motion.

Noun

streak (plural streaks)

An irregular line, as is left from smearing or motion.
- 'Twas early June, the new grass was flourishing everywheres, the posies in the yard—peonies and such—in full bloom, the sun was shining, and the water of the bay was blue, with light green streaks where the shoal showed.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
- The picture I took out the car window had streaks.
1. A band, line or stripe.
  - A streak of light on the horizon.
A continuous series of like events.
- I hope I can keep up this streak of accomplishments.
- I was on a winning streak until the fourth game, when I was dealt terrible cards.
Synonyms:

chain, string
1. (Internet, social media) A measure of activity that tracks how many consecutive days a certain interaction with another user or a service has taken place, a form of gamification to drive user engagement.
  - Out went conversation in favour of fast and more immediate pleasures. We migrated on to texts, voice notes, emojis and the Snapchat “streak”.2025 May 31, Jo Ellison, “The beguiling charm of a bedtime phone call”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 20
2. (figuratively) A consistent facet of somebody's personality.
  - a mean streak
  - a stubborn streak
3. A tendency or characteristic, but not a dominant or pervasive one.
  - She's a quiet, bookish person, but she has a rebellious streak.
  - Rashford showed the fearless streak Southgate so admires with his constant willingness to run at Brazil's defence with pace, even demonstrating on occasion footwork that would not have been out of place from members of England's illustrious opposition.2017 November 14, Phil McNulty, “England 0-0 Brazil”, in BBC News
The color of the powder of a mineral, so called, because a simple field test for a mineral is to streak it against unglazed white porcelain.
A moth of the family Geometridae, Chesias legatella.
- Streak (moth) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
A strake.
A rung or round of a ladder.
The act of streaking, or running naked through a public area.
(collective) A group of tigers.
- The detection of Feline Panleukopenia (FLP) infection in a streak of tigers rescued in Karnataka has raised concerns among forest officials and veterinarians across the country.2025 December 27, Bosky Khanna, “FLP infection in rescued tigress, cubs raises concern in Karnataka”, in New Indian Express
- Busch Gardens Tampa Bay recently welcomed a new addition to its streak of tigers2023 January 27, Chelsea Tatham Zukowski, “Busch Gardens Tampa Bay welcomes new Sumatran tiger”, in Attractions Magazine
Synonyms:

ambush

Verb

streak (third-person singular simple present streaks, present participle streaking, simple past and past participle streaked)

(intransitive) To have or obtain streaks.
- If you clean a window in direct sunlight, it will streak.
(intransitive) To run quickly.
- "As it was I came a hell of a crack against a Dam' rustic arbour in the garden. Dam' near stunned me. But I never stopped a second. Up and over the back fence and streaked for the common."1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 82
(intransitive) To run naked in public.
- It was a pleasant game until some guy went streaking across the field.
- The fad began with a lone male running naked across the Florida State University campus several weeks ago. Students on other campuses began streaking in pairs, then groups, and were joined by some coeds.1974 March 4, Hendrick O'Neil, “Streaking runs its course”, in UPIs 20th Century Top Stories (wire feed)
(intransitive) To move very swiftly.
- But when we streaked through Doncaster at all but a mile-a-minute, with a miraculously clear road, in no more than 37 min. 18 sec. from the York start, I began to sit up and take notice.1949 November and December, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 365
(transitive) To create streaks upon.
- You will streak a window by cleaning it in direct sunlight.
- Though his entire back down to his side fins is of a deep sable, yet a boundary line, distinct as the mark in a ship’s hull, called the “bright waist,” that line streaks him from stem to stern, with two separate colours, black above and white below.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 32, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 157
Synonyms:

vein
(Scotland, UK, obsolete) To stretch; to extend; hence, to lay out, as a dead body.

streak meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

streak in Tamil

இழை வரி, கீற்று வண்ணம், கீற்றுக்கோடு, வண்ணக்கோடு, கோடு, வரி

streak in Urdu

streak, continuous line: سلاخ salāx

streak in Bengali

রেখা, ডোরা, বিশেষ ঝোঁক

More languagesFewer languages

streak in Telugu: పరంపర
streak in Malayalam: വർണ്ണരേഖ, രേഖ, വര, കര
streak in Kannada: ಉದ್ದಗೆರೆ, ಪಟ್ಟಿ, ಗೆರೆ, ರೇಖೆ
streak in Sanskrit: राजि rā́ji, लेखा lekhā, वर्ती vartī
streak in Vietnamese: vệt

Examples of streak in a sentence

But speaking of cats, there's a good deal to be learned about women from them, 'Orace. […] I've known very few who wouldn't admit, between ourselves, that most others had a fair streak of the feline.1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London:
Coinbase’s government work has proved highly controversial to many crypto fans, owing perhaps to the long-running libertarian streak in that community.2022 June 29, Sam Biddle, “Cryptocurrency Titan Coinbase Providing "Geo Tracking Data" to ICE”, in The Intercept:
Wispy high clouds also streak Neptune's upper atmosphere.1990 August, Rick Gore, “Neptune: Voyager's Last Picture Show”, in National Geographic, volume 178, number 2, page 35:

All 40 example sentences with streak

Synonyms of streak

Forms of streak

Noun
plural	streaks
Verb
third-person singular present	streaks
present participle	streaking
past participle	streaked
past	streaked

Past tense of streak: streaked

Plural of streak: streaks

Origin of streak

From Middle English streke, from Old English strica, from Proto-Germanic *strikiz, from Proto-Indo-European *streyg- (“line”). Related to North Frisian strijck, Old Saxon striki, Middle Low German streke, Low German streek, Danish streg, Swedish streck, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk strek, Icelandic stryk, strykr, Dutch streek, Afrikaans streek, Old High German strih, German Strich, Gothic 𐍃𐍄𐍂𐌹𐌺𐍃 (striks).

Phrases with streak

Words that rhyme with streak

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about streak

What does streak mean?: Streak means an irregular line, as is left from smearing or motion.
What is streak in Hindi?: Streak in Hindi is स्ट्रीक. See Streak meaning in Hindi.
How do you use streak in a sentence?: But speaking of cats, there's a good deal to be learned about women from them, 'Orace. […] I've known very few who wouldn't admit, between ourselves, that most others had a fair streak of the feline.
What part of speech is streak?: Streak can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce streak?: Streak is pronounced /stɹiːk/.
What is the plural of streak?: The plural of streak is streaks.

Words near streak in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: streak (page history and authors); streak (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); streak (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); سلاخ (Urdu) (page history and authors); streak (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); streak (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); streak (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); streak (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); राजि (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-streak.ogg.

Cite this entry: “streak.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/streak. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.