packet
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈpækɪt/
ipa: /ˈpækət/
rhymes: -ækɪt
Forms: form: packets
form: pacquet
Etymology: From Middle English pacquet; either from Middle French pacquet, or formed independently from pak and -et.
Senses: examples: text: Don't throw the crisp packet on the floor!
text: a packet of letters
text: a packet of biscuits
text: (archaic) a travel bag containing clothing, nightwear and other accessories.
glosses: A small pack or package; a little bundle or parcel
examples: text: With just the turn of a shoulder she indicated the water front, where, at the end of the dock on which they stood, lay the good ship, Mount Vernon, river packet, the black smoke already pouring from her stacks.
ref: 1910, Emerson Hough, “A Lady in Company”, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
text: Fishguard Harbour, constructed some 60 years ago by the G.W.R., became the packet port for G.W.R. services to Waterford and Rosslare - the latter port itself was a new venture partly under G.W.R. auspices - and to Cork.
ref: 1961 August, “New traffic flows in South Wales”, in Trains Illustrated, page 492:
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: Originally, a vessel employed by government to convey dispatches or mails; hence, a vessel employed in conveying dispatches, mails, passengers, and goods, and having fixed days of sailing; a mail boat. Packet boat, ship, vessel (Wikipedia).
examples: text: With fresh material, taxonomic conclusions are leavened by recognition that the material examined reflects the site it occupied; a herbarium packet gives one only a small fraction of the data desirable for sound conclusions. Herbarium material does not, indeed, allow one to extrapolate safely: what you see is what you get[…].
ref: 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page vii:
topics: biology
botany
natural-sciences
glosses: A specimen envelope containing small, dried plants or containing parts of plants when attached to a larger sheet.
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
networking
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: A small fragment of data as transmitted on some types of network, notably Ethernet networks (Wikipedia).
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
networking
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: A protocol data unit of the Internet Protocol.
examples: text: The Minecraft server accepts connections from TCP clients and communicates with them using packets. A packet is a sequence of bytes sent over the TCP connection.
ref: 2024 September 28 (last accessed), “Protocol”, in wiki.vg, archived from the original on 26 Sep 2024, Definitions:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
networking
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: A message sent over a transport layer protocol.
examples: 2012 August 6, Wendy Knowler, Plastic packets: who bags the profits?
glosses: A plastic bag.
examples: text: A sleeping, silver-haired man, probably about fifty, couldn’t close his legs because of the size of his packet.
ref: 2020, Paul Mendez, Rainbow Milk, Dialogue Books (2021), page 157:
glosses: Synonym of package (“male genitalia”).
synonyms: word: package
extra: male genitalia
examples: text: It'll cost a packet to fix this.
glosses: A large amount of money.
Derived terms: antipacket
book packet
catch a packet
Christmas tree packet
fag packet
interpacket
intrapacket
magic packet
Martian packet
micropacket
multipacket
packet boat
packet-boat
packetful
packetize
packet loss
packet sniffer
packet station
packet tracer
pay packet
penny packet
radgepacket
red packet
small packet
steam-packet
subpacket
wage packet
wave packet