Pipe - Definition and Overview

The word pipe can refer to:

The basic cylindrical "pipe" shape

• a tubular man-made channel, generally round in cross section, in steel or concrete
  • for transporting or guiding a fluid substance see plumbing and pipeline transport
  • used in construction as column, truss element or space frame
  • in mechanical engineering e.g. a bicycle frame

• an exhaust pipe, for channelling waste fumes from an engine or stove

• certain musical instruments among the wind instruments, specifically woodwinds, characterized as being shaped like a pipe or collection of pipes.
  • the flute or reed flute
  • the recorder
  • a boatswain's pipe, also known as a bosun's whistle
  • Instruments often referred to by the plural form "pipes":
    • pan pipes
    • the bagpipe
    • A singer's vocal cords (slang)
• "Piping" as a verb means playing one of these instruments; The Pied Piper of Hamelin is said to have played such an instrument.

• a smoking pipe, for the smoking of tobacco, or certain recreational drugs

• a water pipe, for the smoking of cannabis and tobacco

• in computing:
  • pipe is the name of the ASCII character at position 124 (decimal), 7C (hex), 01111100 (binary): |
  • in the context of Unix operating systems, a pipe signifies that the output of one program feeds directly as input to another program. The Unix shell uses the pipe character (|) to join programs together. See Pipe (computing), Pipe (Unix) and Pipes and filters.
  • in internet slang, a pipe refers to a data backbone, or broadband Internet access (e.g., a "fat pipe" refers to a high-bandwidth connection).

• a vertical conduit through the Earth's crust below a volcano, through which magma has passed; often filled with volcanic breccia

• a halfpipe is a semi-circular ramp for performing skateboarding tricks; by extension, a similar construction in snow for snowboarding

• an illness associated with bloating of the stomach [as in the phrase, 'eugh, my pipes are playing up!']

Pipe can have different meanings when spelled with capitals - see PIPE.

Look up Pipe in Wiktionary, the free dictionary