Definition of "astream" in English

adjective

1. Streaming, flowing (of a liquid, object blown by wind, light, sound).

   • The biker sped by, hair astream from under her helmet.
   • 1968, Donald G. Payne (as Donald Gordon), The Golden Oyster, New York: William Morrow, 1968, Prologue, p. 14, […] oil astream from his engine, he came on till a burst of incendiaries hit him flush in the fuel tank.

2. Having something flowing from, down or along it; covered (with something flowing).

   • Past the finish line, she doubled over panting, her hair astream with sweat.
   • 1958, Samuel Beckett (translator), “Morning” by José Manuel Martínez Navarrete, in Octavio Paz (ed.), An Anthology of Mexican Poetry, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, p. 92, In an instant / the world entire is astream with joy.

adverb

1. In, into, on, onto or along a stream (or other watercourse).

   • I prefer to clean the fish I catch right away, while I’m astream.
   • 1990, Thomas McGuane, “Fishing the Big Hole” in An Outside Chance, Boston: Houghton Mifflin / Seymour Lawrence, p. 249, […] the kind of sleepy, merry conversation I associate with the beginning of a day astream.

2. (nautical) In line with the stream.

   • 1892, E. F. Qualtrough, The Sailor’s Handy Book, New York: Scribner, Section 3, p. 145, Icebergs should always be passed to one side to avoid the detached fragments, lying low in the water, which are often found astream of the berg in masses sufficiently great to stave in the bows of the strongest ship.
   • 1896, Claud Worth diary entry dated 24 September, 1896, in Yacht Cruising, J.D. Potter, 1910, cited in J.O. Coote (ed.), The Norton Book of the Sea, New York: Norton, 1989, p. 138, After she was once fairly astream of her drogue she shipped no more heavy water.