Pipe

The word pipe can refer to:

• a tubular man-made channel, generally round in cross section, for transporting or guiding a fluid substance.
  • See plumbing and pipeline transport

• 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

• 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 method of decorating a cake using a pastry bag, a flexible bag from which icing is forced through a small nozzle, to make various designs

• a pipe (pasta) is a macaroni like type of pasta.

• a large cask for storing fluids, especially wine or oil

• a decorative edging stitched to the hems or seams of an object made of fabric (clothing, hats, pillows, curtains, etc.); often a contrasting color

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