chain
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈt͡ʃeɪn/
rhymes: -eɪn
Forms: form: chains
form: chaining
form: chained
form: chained
Etymology: From Middle English cheyne, chaine, from Old French chaine, chaene (“chain”), from Latin catēna (“chain”), from Proto-Indo-European *kat- (“to braid, twist; hut, shed”). Doublet of catena. Displaced native Middle English rakil and rakent (from Old English racente (“chain”)); see rackan.
Senses: examples: text: You should chain your bicycle to the railings to protect it from being stolen.
glosses: To fasten something with a chain.
examples: text: Sometimes I feel like I'm chained to this computer.
text: She's been chained to her principles since she was 18, it's unlikely you can convince her otherwise.
glosses: To connect as if with a chain, due to dependence, addiction, or other feelings
glosses: To link multiple items together.
glosses: To secure someone with fetters.
glosses: To obstruct the mouth of a river etc with a chain.
examples: text: I miss when Game Of Thrones was wide open, but even then, the writers were chained to a narrative they didn’t yet know the ending of and feared straying too far from.
ref: 2017 August 13, Brandon Nowalk, “Oldtown offers one last game-changing secret as Game Of Thrones goes behind enemy lines (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club:
glosses: To obligate.
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: To relate data items with a chain of pointers.
examples: text: You don’t need to maintain state, or partition execution into different objects that then you can chain together (one executes the other on completion — chained continuations).
ref: 2016 January 15, Mark Papadakis, “Coroutines and Fibers. Why and When”, in Medium:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: To be chained to another data item.
examples: text: As the line was surveyed - a sufficient length being first chained by a surveyor, who was followed by axemen - trees had to be felled and a certain width maintained, which was specified in the contract, for drays had to follow, and the trees might have fallen upon the line and broken it down at the very outset.
ref: 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 99:
glosses: To measure a distance using a 66-foot long chain, as in land surveying.
examples: text: How do you get one program to chain another? I want to run DrawWorks2 then !Draw but as soon as you run Drawworks2 it finishes the batch file and doesn't go on to the next instruction! Is there a way without loading one of these automatic loaders?
ref: 1996, Mr D Walsh, “Running two programs from a batch file”, in comp.sys.acorn.misc (Usenet):
text: You can do LOAD "" or CHAIN "" to load or chain the next program if I remember correctly (it's been a loooong time since I've used a tape on an Acorn!)
ref: 1998, Juan Flynn, “BBC software transmitted on TV - how to load?”, in comp.sys.acorn.misc (Usenet):
text: Recent versions of AntiSpam no longer use the Config file but have a Settings file instead, so when I updated the Config file to chain SpamStamp it had no effect as it was a redundant file.
ref: 2006, Richard Porter, “SpamStamp double headers”, in comp.sys.acorn.apps (Usenet):
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
qualifier: associated with Acorn Computers
glosses: To load and automatically run (a program).
Derived terms: unchain
chain up