strip1
/strɪp
/verb (strips, stripping, stripped) [with object]
1Remove all coverings from: they stripped the bed...
- ‘He strips his own bed, does the vacuuming and makes his own pancakes,’ she said with a smile.
- At least that sheet was there so it saved me stripping the whole bed off.
- Bearing in mind I had just stripped the beds - why do we always want clean sheets ‘for Christmas’?
1.1Remove the clothes from (someone): [with object and complement]: the man had been stripped naked...
- A feeding frenzy ensued - within minutes the unfortunate man was stripped of his clothes.
- I was stripped of my clothes, my innocence, and my life.
- He was stripped of all clothes save for his shoes, the papers in his room in complete disarray.
1.2 [no object] Take off one’s clothes: I was tempted to strip off for a swim she stripped down to her underwear...
- Realizing this, we strip off our clothes and dance through the yard.
- Once I get home, I strip off my clothes, toss them into the hamper and shower.
- On an impulse you strip off all your clothes, swim into the centre of the lake and turn onto your back.
Synonyms
undress, strip off, take one's clothes off, remove one's clothes, shed one's clothes, unclothe, disrobe, strip naked, denude oneself, expose oneself, reveal oneself, uncover oneself
informal peel off
dated divest oneself of one's clothes
1.3Pull or tear off (a garment or covering): she stripped off her shirt figurative strip away the hype and you’ll find original thought...
- Upon stripping the dress from her lean body, Fionnabhair pulled the pants up around her hips and the tunic over her head.
- I rushed over to him, throwing my helmet off and stripping my gloves and jacket.
- The acceleration strips the lining of the artery away faster than it can be replenished.
1.4Remove bark and branches from (a tree).Beavers fell trees, elephants trample plants, ants strip trees of bark, moles dig tunnels, and so the list goes on....
- Some have become overgrown, while others have been lost forever due to grazing animals stripping bark from the trees.
- I mean, the trees are stripped of their leaves and branches, but also the storm surge has had the most devastating result.
1.5Remove (paint or varnish) from (a surface): the floorboards can be stripped, sanded, and polished strip off the existing paint...
- Next job is to strip the varnish from the neck, and sand it down to the wood.
- They run out of beer by about 7pm so we then turned to the wine, which I'm afraid would have stripped the paint off any wall.
- When the paint was stripped it revealed numerous scratches and old repairs.
Synonyms
peel, remove, take off, flake, scrape, scratch, shave, abrade, rub, clear, clean;
pare, skin, flay
technical excoriate, decorticate
1.6Remove the stems from (tobacco).Well, tobacco is stripped from the plant as large leaves....
- Lighter mildew doesn't hurt, because leaves are stripped from the stem.
- It got to where I'd be stripping tobacco suckers from the plants, and I'd be able to sense a lurking copperhead.
1.7Milk (a cow) to the last drop.No sign of anyone but after a few minutes a bachelor farmer would shout from the byre that he was stripping the last cow.
2Leave bare of accessories or fittings: thieves stripped the room of luggage...
- A troubled theatre was forced to stay closed despite new managers taking over after it was stripped bare of its fixtures and fittings.
- The geese pull plants up by the roots to feed on them, stripping the ground bare.
- The house was stripped back to bare walls, rebuilt and extended during the first half of the 1990s and is now finished to a high, modern standard.
Synonyms
empty, clear, clean out, plunder, rob, burgle, loot, rifle, pillage, ransack, gut, lay bare, devastate, sack, ravage, raid
literary despoil
archaic spoil, reave
2.1Remove the accessory fittings of or take apart (a machine, motor vehicle, etc.) to inspect or adjust it: the tank was stripped down piece by piece...
- We completely strip your machine down to the last nut and bolt then rebuild ensuring every component works perfectly.
- Johnny developed a life long love for fixing things and could strip a tractor down and put it together again.
- Police who stripped the van found rope and black adjustable ties.
Synonyms
dismantle, disassemble, take to pieces, take to bits, take apart, break up, demolish
3 (strip someone of) Deprive someone of (rank, power, or property): the lieutenant was stripped of his rank...
- Hitler immediately stripped Hess of all the ranks he held in the Nazi Party including being a party member.
- Kangueehi this week announced that Botes has been stripped of all his powers as chairman of the body's Doping Committee.
- Even then, Alucius would be stripped of most of his power.
Synonyms
take away from, dispossess, deprive, confiscate, divest, relieve, deny, rob
4Sell off (the assets of a company) for profit.One is that the CEOs in question will be powerful enough to strip assets from their companies for their own gain - and get away with it....
- Assets were stripped and massive sums spirited out of the country.
- Have the oligarchs stripped assets from the companies they acquired in privatization, rather than investing in them?
4.1 Finance Divest (a bond) of its interest coupons so that it and they may be sold separately.This unique series of funds buy Treasury bonds stripped of their interest coupons....
- Fimmda will publish the market rates for stripped zero coupon bonds on a monthly basis for valuation and tax purposes.
- You can also buy the coupons instead of the stripped bond itself.
5Tear the thread or teeth from (a screw, gearwheel, etc.).Getting the screw out can strip the bushing threads in the frame....
- Don't over do it, or you just end up stripping the screws.
- I have mounted other things and it felt like you could not tighten things up without stripping the screw in the steel.
5.1 [no object] (Of a screw, gearwheel, etc.) lose its thread or teeth.The Phillips screw had stripped, and Nettie knew she should have gone with a Robertson....
- It was at that point that the screw thread stripped and the pressure blew the whistle up in the air.
- Because of that, your bolts are much longer, and the bolt snapped rather than the aluminum thread stripping out.
6 [no object] (Of a bullet) be fired from a rifled gun without spin owing to a loss of surface.
noun
1An act of undressing, especially in a striptease: she got drunk and did a strip on top of the piano...
- You don't seem overly concerned in the strip with keeping up a continuous narrative.
- Excuse self to find the ladies' room, indulging in a private strip for the mirror, just to see if I am sexy at all.
1.1 [as modifier] Used for or involving the performance of stripteases: a campaigner against strip joints...
- Bourbon Street's world famous for its bars and strip joints.
- First, most of the sailors can't afford Manhattan's strip joints.
- Disability does nothing to dampen his interest in smoking, drinking, skiving school and visiting strip joints.
2British The identifying outfit worn by the members of a sports team while playing: the team’s away strip is a garish mix of red, white, and blue...
- This time he donated a strip to the school team in the town of Serekunda.
- If the jogger was wearing the strip of the team they favoured, they stopped and helped.
- In the United States, a team strip is actually called a uniform.
Synonyms
outfit, clothes, clothing, garments, costume, suit, dress, garb;
British kit
informal gear, get-up
British informal rig-out
Origin
Middle English (as a verb): of Germanic origin; related to Dutch stropen. sense 2 of the noun arose in the late 20th century, possibly from the notion of clothing to which a player ‘strips’ down.
Rhymes
strip2
/strɪp/noun
1A long, narrow piece of cloth, paper, plastic, or some other material: a strip of linen...
- Carefully, she cut several holly leaves out of a strip of green paper and three berries out a piece of vivid crimson.
- Tape a strip of paper or fabric ribbon around the jar.
- Even without these boundaries, there are good visual and organizational reasons to put strips of commands at the top of the screen.
Synonyms
narrow piece, piece, bit, band, belt, ribbon, sash, stripe, bar, swathe, slip, fillet, shred
1.1A long, narrow area of land: the offensive gained a strip of territory a mile wide...
- A riparian zone is a strip of land extending on average 10-30m from a designated river.
- The island was narrow, a strip of land about twenty miles long, running in a north-south direction.
- An area of 2,000 square metres is equivalent to a strip of land just 100 metres long and 20 metres wide.
1.2chiefly North American A main road in or leading out of a town that is lined with shops, restaurants, and other facilities: we went to a discount centre in a strip near where we work...
- Wesley high school stood in the middle of town just off the main strip of Wesley road.
- Nelson agreed and they said goodbye as the Ryan women walked out into the main strip of town.
- On weekend nights dancing, laughing and music can be heard spilling from the bars, clubs and restaurants that line the strip.
1.3 [mass noun] Steel or other metal in the form of narrow flat bars: the company had purchased 67,423 kg of steel strip...
- This contains a thin, flat strip made of a layer of iron and a layer of brass soldered together, and bent into a coil.
- Her hand trembled with the effort of keeping the metal sensor strip in place.
- It is just a long metal strip with a little keypad and monitor on it that will fuse itself to your glove.
2A comic strip: [as modifier]: a strip cartoon...
- Steve also brings us our weekly strip cartoon Back Yard, which you can read on Page 20.
- In lieu of an entry today, I give you this: the first strip in my new comic series, ‘Scutmonkey’.
- Born in 1929, Han worked as a strip cartoon artist for the Shanghai Art Publishing House for decades.
3British A programme broadcast regularly at the same time: he hosts a weekly two-hour advice strip...
- At the end of the strip, the reader is left fully outside the frame, but inside the narrative.
- If I had a regular strip going now that reflected daily life, then that would be a document of the era we're living in.
- So in addition to my weekly strip, which was about politics but also social and pop-culture issues, I began doing all sorts of things.
Origin
Late Middle English: from or related to Middle Low German strippe 'strap, thong', probably also to stripe.