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Definition of patch - 16 dictionary results
patch
1
[pach] 
–noun
| 1. | a small piece of material used to mend a tear or break, to cover a hole, or to strengthen a weak place: patches at the elbows of a sports jacket. |
| 2. | a piece of material used to cover or protect a wound, an injured part, etc.: a patch over the eye. |
| 3. | an adhesive patch that applies to the skin and gradually delivers drugs or medication to the user: using a nicotine patch to try to quit smoking. |
| 4. | any of the pieces of cloth sewed together to form patchwork. |
| 5. | a small piece, scrap, or area of anything: a patch of ice on the road. |
| 6. | a piece or tract of land; plot. |
| 7. | a small field, plot, or garden, esp. one in which a specific type of plant grows or is cultivated: a cabbage patch; a bean patch. |
| 8. | beauty spot (def. 1). |
| 9. | Military. a cloth emblem worn on the upper uniform sleeve to identify the military unit of the wearer. |
| 10. | a small organizational or affiliational emblem of cloth sewn to one's jacket, shirt, cap, etc. |
| 11. | a connection or hookup, as between radio circuits or telephone lines: The patch allowed shut-ins to hear the game by telephone. |
–verb (used with object)
| 12. | to mend, cover, or strengthen with or as if with a patch or patches. |
| 13. | to repair or restore, esp. in a hasty or makeshift way (usually fol. by up). |
| 14. | to make by joining patches or pieces together: to patch a quilt. |
| 15. | to settle or smooth over (a quarrel, difference, etc.) (often fol. by up): They patched up their quarrel before the company arrived. |
| 16. | (esp. in radio and telephone communications) to connect or hook up (circuits, programs, conversations, etc.) (often fol. by through, into, etc.): The radio show was patched through to the ship. Patch me through to the mainland. |
–verb (used without object)
| 17. | to make a connection between radio circuits, telephone lines, etc. (often fol. by in or into): We patched into the ship-to-shore conversation. |
patch
2 [pach] –noun
| a clown, fool, or booby. |
Origin:
1540–50; perh. < It pazzo fool
1540–50; perh. < It pazzo fool
Patch
[pach] –noun
| Alexander Mc⋅Car⋅rell [muh-kar-uhl] , 1889–1945, U.S. World War II general. |
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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|
Link To patch
| beauty spot n.
|
| patch 1 (pāch) n.
v. tr.
Electronics To be connected temporarily. [Middle English pacche, perhaps alteration of pece, pieche, piece; see piece.] patch'a·ble adj., patch'er n. |
| patch 2 (pāch) n. A fool or clown; a dolt. [Perhaps from Italian dialectal paccio, from Old Italian.] |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Patch
Patch\, n. [OE. pacche; of uncertain origin, perh. for placche; cf. Prov. E. platch patch, LG. plakk, plakke.]1. A piece of cloth, or other suitable material, sewed or otherwise fixed upon a garment to repair or strengthen it, esp. upon an old garment to cover a hole. Patches set upon a little breach. --Shak. 2. Hence: A small piece of anything used to repair a breach; as, a patch on a kettle, a roof, etc. 3. A small piece of black silk stuck on the face, or neck, to hide a defect, or to heighten beauty. Your black patches you wear variously. --Beau. & Fl. 4. (Gun.) A piece of greased cloth or leather used as wrapping for a rifle ball, to make it fit the bore. 5. Fig.: Anything regarded as a patch; a small piece of ground; a tract; a plot; as, scattered patches of trees or growing corn. Employed about this patch of ground. --Bunyan. 6. (Mil.) A block on the muzzle of a gun, to do away with the effect of dispart, in sighting. 7. A paltry fellow; a rogue; a ninny; a fool. [Obs. or Colloq.] "Thou scurvy patch." --Shak. Patch ice, ice in overlapping pieces in the sea. Soft patch, a patch for covering a crack in a metallic vessel, as a steam boiler, consisting of soft material, as putty, covered and held in place by a plate bolted or riveted fast.Patch
Patch\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Patched; p. pr. & vb. n. Patching.]1. To mend by sewing on a piece or pieces of cloth, leather, or the like; as, to patch a coat. 2. To mend with pieces; to repair with pieces festened on; to repair clumsily; as, to patch the roof of a house. 3. To adorn, as the face, with a patch or patches. Ladies who patched both sides of their faces. --Spectator. 4. To make of pieces or patches; to repair as with patches; to arrange in a hasty or clumsy manner; -- generally with up; as, to patch up a truce. "If you'll patch a quarrel." --Shak.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Language Translation for : patch
Spanish:
remiendo, parche,
German:
der Flicken,
Japanese:
つぎ
patch
1. n. A temporary addition to a piece of code, usually as a quick-and-dirty remedy to an existing bug or misfeature. A patch may or may not work, and may or may not eventually be incorporated permanently into the program. Distinguished from a diff or mod by the fact that a patch is generated by more primitive means than the rest of the program; the classical examples are instructions modified by using the front panel switches, and changes made directly to the binary executable of a program originally written in an HLL. Compare one-line fix.
2. vt. To insert a patch into a piece of code.
3. [in the Unix world] n. A diff (sense 2).
4. A set of modifications to binaries to be applied by a patching program. IBM operating systems often receive updates to the operating system in the form of absolute hexadecimal patches. If you have modified your OS, you have to disassemble these back to the source. The patches might later be corrected by other patches on top of them (patches were said to "grow scar tissue"). The result was often a convoluted patch space and headaches galore.
5. [Unix] the `patch(1)' program, written by Larry Wall, which automatically applies a patch (sense 3) to a set of source code.
There is a classic story of a tiger team penetrating a secure military computer that illustrates the danger inherent in binary patches (or, indeed, any patches that you can't -- or don't -- inspect and examine before installing). They couldn't find any trap doors or any way to penetrate security of IBM's OS, so they made a site visit to an IBM office (remember, these were official military types who were purportedly on official business), swiped some IBM stationery, and created a fake patch. The patch was actually the trapdoor they needed. The patch was distributed at about the right time for an IBM patch, had official stationery and all accompanying documentation, and was dutifully installed. The installation manager very shortly thereafter learned something about proper procedures.
Jargon File 4.2.0
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patch (1)
"piece of cloth used to mend another material," 1382, of obscure origin, perhaps a variant of pece, pieche, from O.N.Fr. pieche (see piece), or from an unrecorded O.E. word. The verb is 1447, from the noun; electronics sense of "to connect temporarily" is attested from 1923. Patchwork is from 1692. Phrase not a patch on "nowhere near as good as" is from 1860.
patch (2)
"fool, clown," 1549, perhaps from It. pazzo "fool," which is possibly from O.H.G. barzjan "to rave." Form perhaps infl. by folk-etymology from patch (1), on notion of a fool's patched garb.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Main Entry: patch
Pronunciation: 'pach
Function: noun
1 a : a piece of material (as an adhesive plaster) used medically usually to cover a wound,repair a defect, or supply medication through the skin —see PATCH GRAFT,
2 : acircumscribed region of tissue (as on the skin or in a section from an organ) that differs from the normal color or composition
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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patch (pāch)
n.
- A small circumscribed area differing from the surrounding surface.
- A dressing or covering applied to protect a wound or sore.
- A transdermal patch.
The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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patch (pāch) Pronunciation Key
|
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
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Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
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patch software
1. A temporary addition to a piece of code, usually as a quick-and-dirty remedy to an existing bug or misfeature. A patch may or may not work, and may or may not eventually be incorporated permanently into the program. Distinguished from a diff or mod by the fact that a patch is generated by more primitive means than the rest of the program; the classical examples are instructions modified by using the front panel switches, and changes made directly to the binary executable of a program originally written in an HLL. Compare one-line fix.
2. To insert a patch into a piece of code.
3. [in the Unix world] A diff.
4. A set of modifications to binaries to be applied by a patching program. IBM systems often receive updates to the operating system in the form of absolute hexadecimal patches. If you have modified your OS, you have to disassemble these back to the source code. The patches might later be corrected by other patches on top of them (patches were said to "grow scar tissue"). The result was often a convoluted patch space and headaches galore.
There is a classic story of a tiger team penetrating a secure military computer that illustrates the danger inherent in binary patches (or, indeed, any patches that you can't - or don't - inspect and examine before installing). They couldn't find any trap doors or any way to penetrate security of IBM's OS, so they made a site visit to an IBM office (remember, these were official military types who were purportedly on official business), swiped some IBM stationery, and created a fake patch. The patch was actually the trapdoor they needed. The patch was distributed at about the right time for an IBM patch, had official stationery and all accompanying documentation, and was dutifully installed. The installation manager very shortly thereafter learned something about proper procedures.
5. Larry Wall's "patch" utility program, which automatically applies a patch to a set of source code or other text files. Patch accepts input in any of the four forms output by the Unix diff utility. When the files being patched are not identical to those on which the diffs were based, patch uses heuristics to determine how to proceed.
Diff and patch are the standard way of producing and applying updates under Unix. Both have been ported to other operating systems.
Patch Home.
[The Jargon File]
(2005-05-16)
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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| PATCH planned approach to community health |
The American Heritage® Abbreviations Dictionary, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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