What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Stream vs Spray - What's the difference?

stream | spray | Related terms |

As nouns the difference between stream and spray

is that stream is a small river; a large creek; a body of moving water confined by banks while spray is a fine, gentle, dispersed mist of liquid.

As verbs the difference between stream and spray

is that stream is to flow in a continuous or steady manner, like a liquid while spray is {{cx|transitive|lang=en}} To project a liquid in a dispersive manner.

stream

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A small river; a large creek; a body of moving water confined by banks.
  • *
    • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=8 , passage=Now we plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges over the cold trout-streams , the boards giving back the clatter of our horses' feet:
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-01, author=Nancy Langston, volume=101, issue=1, page=59
    • , magazine=(American Scientist) , title= The Fraught History of a Watery World , passage=European adventurers found themselves within a watery world, a tapestry of streams , channels, wetlands, lakes and lush riparian meadows enriched by floodwaters from the Mississippi River.}}
  • A thin connected passing of a liquid through a lighter gas (e.g. air).
  • Any steady flow or succession of material, such as water, air, radio signal or words.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
    • , chapter=10 citation , passage=With a little manœuvring they contrived to meet on the doorstep which was […] in a boiling stream of passers-by, hurrying business people speeding past in a flurry of fumes and dust in the bright haze.}}
  • * {{quote-news, year=2011, date=December 21, author=Helen Pidd
    • , title=Europeans migrate south as continent drifts deeper into crisis, work=the Guardian citation , passage=A new stream of migrants is leaving the continent. It threatens to become a torrent if the debt crisis continues to worsen.}}
  • (sciences) An umbrella term for all moving waters.
  • (computing) A source or repository of data that can be read or written only sequentially.
  • (UK, education) A division of a school year by perceived ability.

    • Synonyms

    * beck * brook * burn * creek * flow * rill

    Related terms

    * live stream * streamer * river * jet stream * Gulf Stream

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To flow in a continuous or steady manner, like a liquid.
  • * Milton
    • beneath those banks where rivers stream
  • * 1898 , , (Moonfleet) Chapter 4
    • When I came to myself I was lying, not in the outer blackness of the Mohune vault, not on a floor of sand; but in a bed of sweet clean linen, and in a little whitewashed room, through the window of which the spring sunlight streamed .
  • To extend; to stretch out with a wavy motion; to float in the wind.
    • A flag streams in the wind.
  • (Internet) To push continuous data (e.g. music) from a server to a client computer while it is being used (played) on the client.

    • Anagrams

    * ----

    spray

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A fine, gentle, dispersed mist of liquid.
    • The sailor could feel the spray from the waves.
  • A small branch of flowers or berries.
    • The bridesmaid carried a spray of lily-of-the-valley.
  • * Dryden
    • The painted birds, companions of the spring, / Hopping from spray to spray, were heard to sing.
  • A collective body of small branches.
    • The tree has a beautiful spray .
  • * Spenser
    • And from the trees did lop the needless spray .
  • A pressurized container; an atomizer.
  • Any of numerous commercial products, including paints, cosmetics, and insecticides, that are dispensed from containers in this manner.
  • (medicine) A jet of fine medicated vapour, used either as an application to a diseased part or to charge the air of a room with a disinfectant or a deodorizer.
  • (metalworking) A side channel or branch of the runner of a flask, made to distribute the metal to all parts of the mold.
  • (metalworking) A group of castings made in the same mold and connected by sprues formed in the runner and its branches.
    • (Knight)

    Derived terms

    * body spray * bug spray * capiscum spray * cooking spray * feather spray * fly spray * hair spray * pepper spray * spray bottle * spray can * spray condenser * spray drain * spray gun * spray paint * vanishing spray

    Verb

  • To project a liquid in a dispersive manner.
  • (figurative) To project many small items dispersively.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-14, author=(Jonathan Freedland)
    • , volume=189, issue=1, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Obama's once hip brand is now tainted , passage=Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.}}
  • To allocate blocks of memory from (a heap, etc.), and fill them with the same byte sequence, hoping to establish that sequence in a certain predetermined location as part of an exploit.
    • to spray the heap of a target process

    Derived terms

    * * sprayable

    Anagrams

    * prays, raspy ----