stringer

noun

1. Someone who threads something; one who makes or provides strings, especially for bows.

   “Be content to put your trust in honest stringers.”

2. Someone who strings someone along.
3. A horizontal timber that supports upright posts, or supports the hull of a vessel.

   “A startled man looked out the office window and then rushed for the door, but the boys were too quick for him. They were lying behind a wooden stringer in the lot before he even got near the door.”

4. The side rail supporting the rungs of a ladder or the steps of a flight of stairs.
5. A small screw-hook to which piano strings are sometimes attached.
6. A freelance correspondent not on the regular newspaper staff, especially one retained on a part-time basis to report on events in a particular place.

   “And he told a few stories about time he had spent in New York in the 1950s as a stringer for the Asahi newspapers… about meeting Diana Vreeland and Truman Capote and Judy Holiday.”

7. A person who plays on a particular string.
8. Wooden strip running lengthwise down the centre of a surfboard, for strength.
9. (slang)A hard-hit ball.
10. A cord or chain, sometimes with additional loops, that is threaded through the mouth and gills of caught fish.

    “"Okay, that's a keeper," Harold said as he netted the 3-pounder and put him on a stringer over the side of the boat.”

11. A pallet or skid used when shipping less than truckload (LTL) freight. A platform typically constructed of timber or plastic designed such that freight may be stacked on top, able to be lifted by a forklift.
12. (obsolete)A libertine; a wencher.

    “A whoreson tyrant! He has been an old stringer in's days”

13. A person who deliberately states that a certain bird is present when it is not; one who knowingly misleads other birders about the occurrence of a bird, especially a rarity.

    “[T]hose fellows know how to spot a stringer at work.”

name

1. (countable, uncountable)A surname originating as an occupation for a stringer.
2. (countable, uncountable)An unincorporated community in Jasper County, Mississippi, United States, named after a postmaster.