STRIP, to remove or tear off the outer covering of anything, hence to rob or plunder; also a narrow long piece of stuff or material, or a mark or division narrow in proportion to its length distinguished from its ground or surroundings by colour or other variation of texture, character, &c.; a stripe; this last word is a variant of “strip,” a particular meaning, that of a stroke or lash of a whip, is either due to the original meaning of “strip,” to flay, or to the long narrow mark or wheat left by a blow. The O. Eng. strypan, to strip, is cognate with Du. stroopen, Ger. streifen, and the root is possibly seen in “strike,” Lat. stringere. “To strip” has many technical meanings, e.g. to separate the tobacco leaf from the stems, to remove the overlying soil from a mineral deposit before opening and working it, to turn a gun-barrel in a lathe, &c. In architecture, a “strip-pilaster” is a narrow pilaster such as is found in Saxon work and in the Italian Romanesque churches. “Stripling,” a youth, is apparently a diminutive of “strip,” in the sense of a young growing lad.