pipeline

Pluralpipelines

Formspipelines, pipelining, pipelined

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A conduit made of connected pipes used to convey water, gas, petroleum, or similar substances.

   Crews spent two years laying the pipeline across the desert.

   Several pipelines carry crude oil from the inland fields to coastal refineries.

   Similarconduit, line

   Note

   The literal sense, and the one every other grows from. The word is simply pipe + line: a line of pipes laid end to end. It usually takes the substance it carries as a modifier, as in an oil pipeline or a gas pipeline. A pipeline is laid, opened or run from one place to another. The figurative pipelines of products, talent and opinion all keep this picture of steady flow along a fixed route.

2. 2
   nounfigurativelycountable

   An organized system or process along which something is carried or moved forward.

   Three new drugs are in the company's development pipeline.

   The studio's animation pipeline takes a film from storyboard to final render.

   Similarworkflow, process, system

   Note

   The figurative use most readers meet first lives in the phrase in the pipeline. It describes something under way but not yet delivered, like software that is built but not yet rolled out. Outside that phrase, a pipeline is a route with a destination. A gym can serve as a pipeline for fighters moving up the ranks, and history education can be a pipeline that connects learners with their roots.

3. 3
   nounfigurativelycountable

   A continuous source that steadily contributes benefits, talent, or innovation.

   The university serves as a pipeline of engineering talent for local startups.

   Strong farm systems give baseball clubs a steady pipeline of young players.

   Similarsource, supply, stream, feeder

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A physical or logical channel that transmits information sequentially, so that the first data in is the first data out.

   Each video frame enters the pipeline and emerges in exactly the order it arrived.

   The shell connects the two programs with a pipeline, feeding one's output to the other in sequence.

   Similarqueue, channel

5. 5
   nounfigurativelycountable

   A commonly seen progression by which a person's interests, situation, or views tend to develop.

   Commentators warn about the pipeline that leads bored teenagers toward extremist online communities.

   She laughed at how neatly she had followed the theater-kid-to-English-teacher pipeline.

   Similarpath, trajectory, route, progression

   Note

   This pattern is named with the formula X-to-Y pipeline: the foster-care-to-homelessness pipeline, the military-to-extremism pipeline. The whole chain is hyphenated as one modifier. The plumbing image stays alive, since a pipeline can even dry up. The label also implies drift rather than choice. That is why Marc A. Ouellette, in Playing with the Gays (2021), resists a phrase that suggests games automatically turn players into extremists.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To convey something by means of a system of pipes.

   The company pipelines crude oil from the wellheads to a coastal terminal.

   Engineers proposed to pipeline treated wastewater back to the irrigation district.

   Similarconvey, transport, pump, carry

   Note

   Here the object is the thing that flows: you pipeline oil, gas or wastewater from one place to another. Its twin, laying pipes through an area, takes the place as its object instead, so you pipeline a valley or a district. A from…to phrase after the object usually signals this conveying sense rather than the construction one.

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   To lay a system of pipes through an area.

   Contractors plan to pipeline the industrial district before the new plant opens.

   The utility pipelined the valley in the 1960s to deliver natural gas to remote ranches.

8. 8
   verbtransitive

   To design a microchip or similar system so that processing takes place in efficient stages, with the output of each stage fed as input to the next.

   The design team pipelined the arithmetic unit, letting it begin one instruction before finishing the previous one.

   Vendors pipeline their graphics chips so that several frames are in progress simultaneously.

   Note

   This engineer's verb is built from the data-channel noun. To pipeline a chip is to break its work into stages that feed one another, so a new task can begin before the last one finishes. The past participle often works as an adjective, as in a pipelined processor or a pipelined arithmetic unit. In that form, the word describes the architecture rather than the act of designing it.

9. 9
   nouncountable

   The hollow inside of a breaking wave that a surfer rides as the crest begins to close over it.

   He tucked low and shot through the pipeline before the wave collapsed behind him.

   Only experienced surfers attempt to ride the pipeline on a heavy reef break.

   Similartube, barrel

   Note

   In this surfer's word, the original pipe returns almost literally. As the crest closes over, the wave curls into a tube with the rider inside it. A surfer rides or shoots through the pipeline, and it lasts only a moment before the wave collapses behind them. Because it is a hollow rather than a surface, a surfer is in the pipeline, never on it.

Showing meanings only. Show all 9