[sok-it] 
| 1. | a hollow part or piece for receiving and holding some part or thing. |
| 2. | Electricity.
|
| 3. | Anatomy.
|
| 4. | to place in or fit with a socket. |
| sock·et (sŏk'ĭt) n.
To furnish with or insert into a socket. [Middle English soket, from Anglo-Norman, spearhead, diminutive of soc, plowshare, probably of Celtic origin; see sū- in Indo-European roots.] |
socket sock·et (sŏk'ĭt)
n.
The concave part of a joint that receives the articular end of a bone.
A hollow or concavity into which a part, such as an eye fits.
socket networking
The Berkeley Unix mechansim for creating a virtual connection between processes. Sockets interface Unix's standard I/O with its network communication facilities. They can be of two types, stream (bi-directional) or datagram (fixed length destination-addressed messages). The socket library function socket() creates a communications end-point or socket and returns a file descriptor with which to access that socket. The socket has associated with it a socket address, consisting of a port number and the local host's network address.
Unix manual page: socket(2).
(1995-01-31)
