patch
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /pæt͡ʃ/
rhymes: -ætʃ
Forms: form: patches
Etymology: From Middle English patche, of uncertain origin. Perhaps an alteration of earlier Middle English placche (“patch, spot, piece of cloth”), from Old English *plæċċ, *pleċċ (“a spot, mark, patch”), from Proto-West Germanic *plakkju, from Proto-Germanic *plakjō (“spot, stain”). For the loss of l compare pat from Middle English platten. Germanic cognates would then include Middle English plecke, dialectal English pleck (“plot of ground, patch”), West Frisian plak (“place, spot”), Low German Plakk, Plakke (“spot, piece, patch”), Dutch plek (“spot, place, stain, patch”), Dutch plak (“piece, slab”), Swedish plagg (“garment”), Faroese plagg (“cloth, rag”).
Or, possibly a variant of Old French pieche, dialectal variant of piece (“piece”). Compare also Old Occitan petaç (“patch”).
Senses: examples: text: His sleeves had patches on the elbows where different fabric had been sewn on to replace material that had worn away.
glosses: A piece of cloth, or other suitable material, sewed or otherwise fixed upon a garment to repair or strengthen it, especially upon an old garment to cover a hole.
examples: text: I can't afford to replace the roof, which is what it really needs. I'll have the roofer apply a patch.
glosses: A small piece of anything used to repair damage or a breach; as, a patch on a kettle, a roof, etc.
examples: text: Before you can fix a dam, you have to apply a patch to the hole so that everything can dry off.
text: "This patch should hold until you reach the city," the mechanic said as he patted the car's hood.
glosses: A piece of any size, used to repair something for a temporary period only, or that it is temporary because it is not meant to last long or will be removed as soon as a proper repair can be made, which will happen in the near future.
examples: text: The world economy had a rough patch in the 1930s.
text: To me, a normal cow is white with black patches, but Sarah's from Texas and most of the cows there have solid brown, black, or red coats.
text: Doesn't that patch of clouds looks like a bunny?
text: When ice skating, be sure to stay away from reeds: there are always thin patches of ice there, and you could fall through.
glosses: A small, usually contrasting but always somehow different or distinct, part of something else (location, time, size)
examples: text: scattered patches of trees or growing corn
text: There was a blackberry patch down by the creek, and his grandparents called the pasture down there the cow patch.
text: Just the suggestion that a good blueberry patch was near would bring everything to a standstill.
ref: 1940 November, “Notes and News: Railway Operation Ad Lib”, in Railway Magazine, pages 611–612:
glosses: A small area, a small plot of land or piece of ground.
examples: text: There is a lot to be said in praise of the local or regional outlet that keeps very closely across the doings and news in their patch.
ref: 2012, Bruce Grundy, Martin Hirst, Janine Little, So You Want To Be A Journalist?: Unplugged, →ISBN, page 44:
text: […] formed a contact with a man, who was the secretary of the tenants' association of a small housing estate in the social worker's patch.
ref: 1980, Noel Parry, Michael Rustin, Carole Satyamurti, Social Work, Welfare & the State, page 101:
glosses: A local region of professional responsibility.
examples: text: Your black patches you wear variously.
ref: 1625, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, “The Elder Brother. A Comedy.”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1679, →OCLC, Act III, scene v:
text: ...Then the patches had to be placed—patches full of sentiment, coquetry, and bits of opinions as minute as themselves. Essences and powder had to he scattered together, and Henrietta's long black tresses gathered into a mass which might fairly set all the orders of architecture at defiance.
ref: 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Another London Life”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 169:
glosses: A small piece of black silk stuck on the face or neck to heighten beauty by contrast, worn by ladies in the 17th and 18th centuries; an imitation beauty mark.
topics: medicine
sciences
glosses: A piece of material used to cover a wound.
examples: text: Many people use a nicotine patch to wean themselves off of nicotine.
topics: medicine
sciences
glosses: An adhesive piece of material, impregnated with a drug, which is worn on the skin, the drug being slowly absorbed over a period of time.
examples: text: He had scratched his cornea so badly that his doctor told him to wear a patch.
topics: medicine
sciences
glosses: A cover worn over a damaged eye, an eyepatch.
glosses: A block on the muzzle of a gun, to do away with the effect of dispart, in sighting.
examples: text: Immediately following the incident Siemens commissioned a software patch that will allow units which protectively shut down below 49Hz to recover themselves without the need of a reboot or laptop when the frequency rises to 49.5Hz. At the beginning of September, this patch was being verified by Siemens software engineers at Erlangen in Germany.
ref: 2019 October, Roger Ford, “Power failure highlights specification confusion”, in Modern Railways, page 28:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: A piece of data intended to modify a computer file by replacing a part of it.
topics: engineering
firearms
government
military
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
politics
tools
war
weaponry
glosses: A small piece of material that is manually passed through a gun barrel to clean it.
topics: engineering
firearms
government
military
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
politics
tools
war
weaponry
glosses: A piece of greased cloth or leather used as wrapping for a rifle ball, to make it fit the bore.
examples: text: soundboard patch
qualifier: often patch cable; patch cord; see also patch panel; often patch cable; patch cord; see also patch panel
glosses: A cable connecting two pieces of electrical equipment.
examples: text: A synthesizer comes with controls to store patches and edit them. Some high-end synthesizers even have floppy disks for additional patch storage.
ref: 1988 November 28, “MIDI: Computers and Music”, in U-M Computing News, volume 3, number 21, The University of Michigan Computing Center, page 11:
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: A sound setting for a musical synthesizer (originally selected by means of a patch cable).
topics: media
printing
publishing
glosses: An overlay used to obtain a stronger impression.
glosses: A butterfly of the genus Chlosyne.
Synonyms: sense: piece of black silk
word: beauty spot
sense: a small, distinct part of something larger
word: section
sense: a small, distinct part of something larger
word: area
sense: a small, distinct part of something larger
word: blotch
sense: a small, distinct part of something larger
word: spot
sense: a small, distinct part of something larger
word: period of time
sense: a small, distinct part of something larger
word: spell
sense: a small, distinct part of something larger
word: stretch
sense: a small area, plot of land, or piece of ground
word: tract
Derived terms: agropatch
autopatch
backpatch
bad patch
bald patch
bare patch
briar-patch
brood patch
cabbage patch
cold patch
cornpatch
cross-patch
cryptopatch
Dogpatch
eye patch
Gabor patch
garbage patch
Great Pacific Garbage Patch
herald patch
hot patch
hot-patch
interpatch
intrapatch
macropatch
micropatch
monkey patch
morale patch
multipatch
nanopatch
nicotine patch
not a patch on
oilpatch
oil-patch
oil patch
patch bay
patchbay
patchboard
patch-box
patch box
patch clamp
patchcoat
patch file
patch ice
patchless
patchlike
patch pocket
patchset
patch test
patch up
patch-up
patchwise
patchword
patchwork
patchwriting
patchy
pea patch
Peyer's patch
powder-down patch
purple patch
Rembrandt patch
rough patch
soul patch
surface patch
taro-patch fiddle
tear up the pea patch
transdermal patch
truck patch
yellow patch