stripes
noun
Form of stripe , plural of stripe.
Simple meaning
Long, narrow bands of color.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
strypsIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈstɹaɪps
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
V-shaped sleeve badge indicating military rank and service
“They earned their stripes in Kuwait.”
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: V-shaped sleeve badge indicating military rank and service
Used this way, stripes is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a military use: it belongs to service and operational language.
“They earned their stripes in Kuwait.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Military
- Historical writing
- News/reporting
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Natural pattern: stripes in …
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
An adornment consisting of a strip of a contrasting color or material.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The national flag of the United States of America.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
The act of marking with stripes.
A variety of button quail having stripes.
Pacific food and game fish marked with dark blue vertical stripes.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: v-shaped sleeve badge indicating military rank and service
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.