StringA string is a set of consecutive characters that the computer recognizes as a single unit. A "character string" is the same thing as a string. Strings are used in programming; if text is not in a string, the computer takes the text character-by-character.
It's common to see the word "string" while net surfing--when you perform a search, you are often instructed to enter a "search string". The more strings you enter for a search, the more specific the results of your search will be.
Strings are used frequently by text editors such as Emacs Lisp, which reads the string as an ordered sequence. Strings are used for a variety of reasons by text editors--to give the user a message or to display text copied between buffers, for example.