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

• remote strobe
• strobe light
• strobe lighting
• strobelike
• strobic
• strobotron

Translations

a stroboscopic lamp: a device used to produce regular flashes of light

• French: stroboscope (fr) m
• Norwegian: roterende lys
• Polish: stroboskop (pl) m inan
• Spanish: lámpara estroboscópica f

an electronic signal in hardware indicating that a value is ready to be read

• Polish: światło stroboskopowe n
• Spanish: señal estroboscópica f

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

• Polish: migotać (pl) impf, zamigotać pf
• Spanish: estroboscopiar

Anagrams

• Boster, Stober, Tobers, besort, borest, sorbet, tobers

Latin

Noun

strobe

1. vocative singular of strobus