A string is a thin piece of material, often made of fibers, that is used for tying, binding, or connecting objects. It can be made from various materials, including cotton, nylon, or polyester, and comes in different thicknesses and lengths. Strings are commonly used in everyday items like shoelaces, sewing threads, and musical instruments such as guitars and violins. In the context of computer programming, a string refers to a sequence of characters, such as letters, numbers, or symbols. Strings are used to represent text and can be manipulated through various operations, like concatenation or slicing. Programming languages like Python and Java provide built-in functions to work with strings efficiently.