strobe

English

Etymology

Shortening of stroboscope.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /stɹəʊb/
  • Audio (Southern England):(file)
  • (General American) IPA(key): /stɹoʊb/
  • Rhymes: -əʊb

Noun

strobe (plural strobes)

  1. A stroboscopic lamp: a device used to produce regular flashes of light.
    • 2006, Michael Grecco, Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait, Amphoto Books, →ISBN, page 59:
      White all light sources illuminate the subject, the strobe both illuminates and "freezes" the subject.
  2. A pulse of light, such as from a flashing or rotating light source.
    • 2002 January 1, Charles Waugh, Martin Greenberg, Lighthouse Hauntings, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 158:
      "The strobe from the lighthouse came into the window and lit up the wall behind my crib."
    • 2019 October 8, Deborah Crombie, A Bitter Feast: A Novel, HarperCollins, →ISBN:
      From somewhere behind him came a strobe of light, then he heard a car door slam.
    • 2026 July 14, April Richardson, The Hidden Crown Legacy: Dark Romance:
      A strobe swept across, and light flashed from a sparkly top he'd never seen before.
  3. (computing) An electronic signal in hardware indicating that a value is ready to be read.
    a memory strobe; a data strobe

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

strobe (third-person singular simple present strobes, present participle strobing, simple past and past participle strobed)

  1. To flash like a stroboscopic lamp.
    • 1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, 1st US edition, New York: Viking Press, →ISBN:
      ... as they fuck she quakes, body strobing miles beneath him in cream and night-blue, all sound suppressed, eyes in crescents behind gold lashes...
    • 1986, Sam Frank, Sex in the Movies:
      Here was a blazingly erotic sex star par excellence as Travolta gyrated around that strobing disco dance floor like a cock-o'-the-walk.
    • 2023 November 29, Peter Plisner, “The winds of change in Catesby Tunnel”, in RAIL, number 997, page 58:
      The problem was that when running cables the entire length of the tunnel, engineers had to take into account any voltage drop to ensure no lights strobe - something that could cause serious issues for drivers running at high speeds.
  2. To practice the makeup technique of strobing.

Translations

Translations

Anagrams

Latin

Noun

strobe

  1. vocative singular of strobus
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