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file

[fahyl]

noun

a folder, cabinet, or other container in which papers, letters, etc., are arranged in convenient order for storage or reference.

a collection of papers, records, etc., arranged in convenient order: to make a file for a new account.

Computers. a collection of related data or program records stored on some input/output or auxiliary storage medium: This program's main purpose is to update the customer master file.

a line of persons or things arranged one behind another (distinguished from rank).

Military.

a person in front of or behind another in a military formation.

one step on a promotion list.

EXPAND

one of the vertical lines of squares on a chessboard.

a list or roll.

a string or wire on which papers are strung for preservation and reference.

COLLAPSE

verb (used with object)

to place in a file.

10.

to arrange (papers, records, etc.) in convenient order for storage or reference.

11.

Journalism.

to arrange (copy) in the proper order for transmittal by wire.

to transmit (copy), as by wire or telephone: He filed copy from Madrid all through the war.

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File is always a great word to know.

So is distributed data processing. Does it mean:

a method of organizing data processing that uses a central computer that communicates with smaller local computers, which may communicate with each other

a small application program that can be called up for use while working in another application

LEARN MORE UNUSUAL WORDS WITH WORD DYNAMO...

verb (used without object)

12.

to march in a file or line, one after another, as soldiers: The parade filed past endlessly.

13.

to make application: to file for a civil-service job.

Idiom

14.

on file, arranged in order for convenient reference; in a file: The names are on file in the office.

Origin:
1425–75; late Middle English filen < Middle French filer to string documents on a thread or wire, Old French: to wind or spin thread < Late Latin fīlāre, verbal derivative of Latin fīlum thread, string

Related forms

file·a·ble, adjective

fil·er, noun

non·fil·er, noun

Synonyms
10. classify, label, catalog, index, list, categorize.

Example Sentences

Gmail does not allow all file types to be attached to e-mails.

Afterwards you can choose where you want to save the larger file and type in a filename.

File transfer is another area where new approaches will be required.

EXPAND

Gmail does not allow all file types to be attached to e-mails.

Afterwards you can choose where you want to save the larger file and type in a filename.

File transfer is another area where new approaches will be required.

Or they take photos of each meal and the caloric content is automatically logged into a file.

You've probably even tried to use it to download a file using a link somebody sent you.

Changes in file formats can affect the size of your music files.

The recording industry's lawsuit campaign may have forced some would-be file swappers off of peer-to-peer networks.

The challenge is how to minimise the number of copies of the same file that have to be distributed.

File sharing doesn't have to be about indiscriminate trading with anonymous strangers.

For more than eight years, big banks lobbied aggressively to make it harder for consumers to file for bankruptcy.

The fracas over file sharing has prompted many proposals, but no grand solution.

Each state has different laws about whether and how municipalities may file for bankruptcy.

To hear some tell it, file sharing gutted the music industry by encouraging people to gorge themselves on free, illegal content.

There's a simple idea about productivity and writing: almost anything you need to do, you can do in a plain text file.

The company could file for bankruptcy by the end of the month.

Contrary to messages from the music industry, not all file sharing rips off artists.

It no longer seems possible to blame the music industry's troubles on anything but file sharing.

For starters, latency depends on bandwidth: for a given bit rate a large file will have higher latency than a smaller file.

The opposition has cried foul and intends to file judicial complaints.

Investors will also have longer to file lawsuits against companies of which they suspect fraud.

For years colleges have gone far beyond any legal requirements to limit online file trading and to mount education campaigns.

The vets' board says letting non-vets file horses' teeth endangers the horses.

We encourage you to familiarize yourself with the various file types your camera or scanner.

The advocacy organization will file a lawsuit to require companies to disclose their ingredients.

The only things my mother ever canned were troublesome file clerks at the law office she used to manage.

Click on the links below to open the file for each side of the pinwheel.

The beleaguered bookseller could file for bankruptcy as early as next week after efforts to refinance its debt faltered.

Then locate the file and double click it to play it.

These words are then stored along with the links to the corresponding pages in an index file.

Written by someone who worked as a file clerk and sometime music critic and illustrated by denizens of top-notch artists.

LimeWire served up a major upgrade to its file sharing client.

No more editing two versions of the same file and then having to figure out which is newest only to discover they both are.

But even if it becomes law it will not please all the many businesses and other organisations that file patents.

The list may be given as a text file or it may be copy-pasted into the text window.

The patient will wait for their paper mag to land in the mailbox, the others will pay for the digital file.

The following video illustrates rather plainly the fact that file sharing is not stealing.

The problem here is going to be file size, file size, file size.

Find the desired image in the file list and double-click it.

I'll try to pack off an interesting zip file to the authors.

One might object that these words do not belong in a sig file.

If you suspect a government agency has a file on you, demand to see it.

In the next dialog box, choose to either display the chart in a separate file or in the file already open.

But any patch of space can become a black hole, nature's densest file cabinet, which stores information in bits of area.

They will sit in a file folder somewhere, never to be looked at again.

In doing so, the vehicles may move side-by-side rather than in single file.

Putting them into a larger pdf file was ok, but still not as convenient as the slide format in pp.

There are no licence fees, and the file formats and data structures are open.

One of my students is asked to write a letter for my tenure promotion file.

Estonians track which bureaucrats have looked at their file.

The file box is about the size of those portable file boxes and fits neatly under my desk.

But as his and the party's ratings kept sinking, the rank and file became restless.

Voila, file with your new work and a time stamp from last year.

Please submit an application file that includes information about your research and teaching interests.

The questions can be exported as a text or rtf file.

Sometimes it is better to threaten a lawsuit rather than file one.

Textbooks do little for a tenure file in proportion to the vast amounts of time they take.

Search committee chair gets your new one, reads it, then pulls out the file to look at your old one more carefully.

COLLAPSE

Dictionary.com Unabridged

noun

a long, narrow tool of steel or other metal having a series of ridges or points on its surfaces for reducing or smoothing surfaces of metal, wood, etc.

a small, similar tool for trimming and cleaning fingernails; nail file.

British Slang. a cunning, shrewd, or artful person.

verb (used with object)

to reduce, smooth, or remove with or as if with a file.

Origin:
before 900; Middle English; Old English fīl, fēol; cognate with German Feile; akin to Greek pikrós sharp

Related forms

file·a·ble, adjective

fil·er, noun

verb (used with object), filed, fil·ing. Archaic.

to defile; corrupt.

Origin:
before 1000; Middle English; Old English fȳlan to befoul, defile, derivative of fūl foul

noun New Orleans Cookery.

a powder made from the ground leaves of the sassafras tree, used as a thickener and to impart a pungent taste to soups, gumbos, and other dishes.

Also called filé powder.

Origin:
1800–10, Americanism; < Louisiana French; literally, twisted, ropy, stringy (perhaps orig. applied to dishes thickened with the powder), past participle of French filer; see file¹

Link To file

Collins

World English Dictionary

file¹ (faɪl)

—n
1.	a folder, box, etc, used to keep documents or other items in order
2.	the documents, etc, kept in this way
3.	documents or information about a specific subject, person, etc: we have a file on every known thief
4.	an orderly line or row
5.	Compare rank a line of people in marching formation, one behind another
6.	any of the eight vertical rows of squares on a chessboard
7.	computing a named collection of information, in the form of text, programs, graphics, etc, held on a permanent storage device such as a magnetic disk
8.	obsolete a list or catalogue
9.	(Canadian) a group of problems or responsibilities, esp in government, associated with a particular topic: the environment file
10.	on file recorded or catalogued for reference, as in a file

—vb
11.	to place (a document, letter, etc) in a file
12.	(tr) to put on record, esp to place (a legal document) on public or official record; register
13.	(tr) to bring (a suit, esp a divorce suit) in a court of law
14.	(tr) to submit (copy) to a newspaper or news agency
15.	(intr) to march or walk in a file or files: the ants filed down the hill

[C16 (in the sense: string on which documents are hung): from Old French filer, from Medieval Latin fīlāre; see filament]

'filer¹

—n

file² (faɪl)

—n
1.	a hand tool consisting essentially of a steel blade with small cutting teeth on some or all of its faces. It is used for shaping or smoothing metal, wood, etc
2.	rare, slang (Brit) a cunning or deceitful person

—vb
3.	(tr) to shape or smooth (a surface) with a file

[Old English fīl; related to Old Saxon fīla, Old High German fīhala file, Greek pikros bitter, sharp]

'filer²

—n

file³ (faɪl)

—vb
	obsolete (tr) to pollute or defile

[Old English fӯlan; related to Middle Low German vülen; see defile¹, filth, foul]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

file

"to place (papers) in consecutive order for future reference," late 15c., from M.Fr. filer "string documents on a wire for preservation or reference," from fil "thread, string," from L. filum "thread," from PIE base *gwhis-lom (cf. Armenian jil "sinew, string, line," Lith. gysla "vein, sinew," O.C.S.

EXPAND

zila "vein"). The notion is of documents hung up on a line like drying laundry. Methods have become more sophisticated, but the word has stuck. The noun first attested in Eng. in the military sense, "line or row of men," 1590s, from M.Fr. filer in the sense of "spin out (thread), march in file." Related: Filed; filing. The noun meaning "arranged collection of papers" is from 1620s; computer sense is from 1954.

file

"metal tool," O.E. feol (Mercian fil), from P.Gmc. *finkhlo (cf. O.H.G. fila, M.Du. vile, Ger. Feile), probably from PIE *pik-/*peik- "cut" (cf. Skt. pimsati "hews out, carves," L. pingere "to paint," O.C.S. pila "file, saw," Lith. pela "file;" see paint). The verb in this

sense is from early 13c. Related: Filed; filing.

COLLAPSE

American Heritage

Science Dictionary

file (fīl) Pronunciation Key
A collection of related data or program records stored as a unit with a single name. Files are the basic units that a computer works with in storing and retrieving data.

Slang Dictionary

(pro)file definition

in.
to walk about and show something off; to walk carefully in a way that gets attention. (As if showing one's profile.) : Look at Albert profiling along! What a nerd.

Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
Cite This Source

FOLDOC

Computing Dictionary

file definition

file system
An element of data storage in a file system.
The history of computing is rich in varied kinds of files and file systems, whether ornate like the Macintosh file system or deficient like many simple pre-1980s file systems that didn't have directories. However, a typical file has these characteristics:
* It is a single sequence of bytes (but consider Macintosh resource forks).
* It has a finite length, unlike, e.g., a Unix device.
* It is stored in a non-volatile storage medium (but see ramdrive).
* It exists (nominally) in a directory.
* It has a name that it can be referred to by in file operations, possibly in combination with its path.
Additionally, a file system may support other file attributes, such as permissions; timestamps for creation, last modification, and last access and revision numbers (a` la VMS).
Compare: document.
(2007-01-04)

American Heritage

Idioms & Phrases

file

see in single file; on file; rank and file.