upstream

Formsfurther upstream, farther upstream, furthest upstream, farthest upstream

Formsfurther upstream, farther upstream, furthest upstream, farthest upstream

Pluralupstreams

Formsupstreams, upstreaming, upstreamed

1. 1
   adjective

   Pointing or moving against the flow of a current or stream of water; toward the source.

   Their upstream route forced the rowers to fight the river the whole way.

   The upstream side of the dam holds back a vast reservoir.

   Similarupriver

   Oppositedownstream, downriver

   Note

   The literal river sense, and the base of every other: a plain compound of up- and stream. It compares with separate words rather than an ending, as in further upstream and farthest upstream. Its mirror image is downstream, and the "earlier in a chain" meaning carries the same picture of water flowing from source to mouth into processes and systems.

2. 2
   adverb

   Moving against the flow of the current.

   The trout darted upstream the moment the heron appeared.

   We hiked upstream until we reached the waterfall feeding the creek.

   Similarupriver

   Oppositedownstream, downriver

   Note

   The adverb answers the question "which way?": you swim, row or walk upstream. H. G. Wells still hyphenated it in The War of the Worlds (1898), where a scalding wave "came sweeping round the bend up-stream." Today it is written as one word, and it can follow a verb of motion or stand alone after a noun of place.

3. 3
   noun

   The section of a river lying toward the source, in the direction against the flow.

   The upstream of the river was calm compared with the rapids below.

   Conservationists fenced off the upstream to protect the spawning beds.

   Note

   Used with the, the word stops pointing and becomes a place. Water engineers use it this way. The Proceedings of the Iraqi Scientific Societies (1957) describe measuring the total depth of water "at the upstream" with a pointer on a carriage. The plural upstreams also exists for more than one such stretch.

4. 4
   adjectivefiguratively

   Occurring earlier in a chain of events, and typically influencing or causing what comes afterward.

   Upstream factors in the supply chain determined how quickly products reached stores.

   Poor upstream design choices created problems throughout the whole system.

   Similarearlier, preceding, prior

   Oppositedownstream

   Note

   Here the river becomes a metaphor for any sequence. Whatever comes first stands upstream, and its effects flow down to what follows. The word usually takes of, as in input entry is upstream of input validation, and it tends to imply influence rather than mere earlier timing. The specialist uses in oil, networking, software and genetics all branch from this figurative picture.

5. 5
   adjectivefiguratively

   Describing data moving from the client toward the server.

   Engineers measured the upstream throughput from each client node.

   An upstream packet travels from the user's device toward the host.

   Oppositedownstream

   Note

   In networking the stream is the flow of data, and the client sits at its source end, sending traffic up toward the server. Its partner is downstream, the direction from server to client. The two are often quoted separately as speeds, because asymmetric connections typically give the upstream side less bandwidth, since most clients request more than they send.

6. 6
   adjectivefiguratively

   Maintained by or associated with the original developers of a piece of software, as distinct from a modified version.

   The patch was merged into the upstream branch and shipped to everyone.

   Distributors track the upstream project to stay current with security fixes.

   Oppositedownstream

   Note

   A project's original codebase is upstream. The distributions, forks and packagers that adapt it are downstream. The word is at home in bug-tracking talk, in phrases such as an upstream bug, the upstream bug tracker and an upstream developer. There it tells a user whether a fault belongs to the original project or to the version they installed. The verb upstream names sending changes back.

7. 7
   noununcountable

   The team that originally created and continues to maintain a piece of software.

   The maintainers forwarded the bug report to upstream for a permanent fix.

   Upstream accepted the contribution and merged it into the next release.

   Note

   Here the word names people rather than code, and it often drops its article, almost like a proper name: you report a bug to upstream, and upstream accepts a patch. Its counterpart is downstream, meaning the forks and distributions that build on the project and send their contributions back for review.

8. 8
   adjectivefiguratively

   Relating to the exploration and extraction stages of oil and gas, rather than refining and selling them.

   The firm sold its upstream assets to focus on refining and retail.

   Upstream operations slowed as exploration budgets were cut.

   Oppositedownstream

   Note

   Oil and gas divide their business along the river. Upstream covers locating reserves, drilling and bringing crude to the surface. Refining and marketing sit downstream, and transport sits in the midstream between them. Upstream assets, upstream operations and upstream budgets are the everyday collocations, and selling one end to focus on the other is a familiar corporate move.

9. 9
   verbtransitive

   To have a patch or library accepted by a software's original developers, so they maintain and distribute it.

   The team will upstream the new filesystem code once it passes review.

   They upstream their bug fixes regularly to reduce duplicate work.

   Similarcontribute

   Note

   Open-source developers use this verb for moving code back toward its origin: a fix made in a modified copy is upstreamed when the original maintainers take it in. It is transitive, with the code as its object (upstream a patch, a driver, a library), and its forms are regular: upstreams, upstreaming, upstreamed. The subject need not be the code's author. Anyone who shepherds a change into the original project can upstream it.

10. 10
    adjectivefiguratively

    Located toward the 5′ end of a DNA molecule, relative to a given gene or position.

    Researchers identified an upstream promoter that regulates the gene's activity.

    An upstream enhancer boosted transcription of the downstream gene.

    Oppositedownstream

    Note

    The word is always relative in genetics. A sequence is upstream of something, usually the start of a gene. Regulatory elements such as promoters and enhancers typically lie upstream of the coding sequence they control, while the region the gene extends into lies downstream. In practice the phrase upstream of almost always names its reference point.

11. 11
    verbintransitive

    To rise and flow in an upward stream.

    Embers upstream from the campfire whenever the wind gusts.

    Steam upstreamed from the kettle's spout in a thin ribbon.

    Similarrise, stream, ascend

    Note

    A literal compound of up- and stream that describes smoke, steam or sparks rising in a flow. It shares its spelling and its endings, upstreams and upstreamed, with the software verb, but this one takes no object. Things upstream on their own; nobody upstreams them. Whether there is an object, together with the context, settles which verb is meant.

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