batch
Noun · VerbOpen English WordNet
Noun (3)batches
- all the loaves of bread baked at the same timeType of collection, aggregation
- (often followed by ‘of’) a large number or amount or extent“a batch of letters”“a deal of trouble”“a lot of money”“he made a mint on the stock market”“see the rest of the winners in our huge passel of photos”“it must have cost plenty”“a slew of journalists”“a wad of money”Synonyms: dealflockgood dealgreat dealhatfulheaplotmassmessmicklemintmountainmucklepasselpeckpileplentypotquite a littleraftsightslewspatestacktidy sumwadType of large indefinite quantity, large indefinite amountKinds flood, haymow
- a collection of things or persons to be handled togetherSynonyms: clutchType of collection, aggregationKinds schmeer, schmear
Verb (1)batches
- batch together; assemble or process as a batchMore general group
What does it mean? Question 1 of today’s quiz
Translations
Noun quantity of baked goods made at one time
Noun quantity of anything produced in one operation
The main translation for each meaning, from the langtolang.com multilingual dictionary. Each word links to its full entry there.
Webster's Dictionary (1913)
Origin: OE. bache, bacche, fr. AS. bacan to bake; cf. G. gebäck and D. baksel. See Bake, transitive verb
1. The quantity of bread baked at one time.
2. A quantity of anything produced at one operation; a group or collection of persons or things of the same kind; as, a batch of letters; the next batch of business. “A new batch of Lords.” Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54
Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
<programming> A system that takes a sequence (a "batch") of commands or jobs, executes them and returns the results, all without human intervention. This contrasts with an interactive system where the user's commands and the computer's responses are interleaved during a single run.
A batch system typically takes its commands from a disk file (or a set of punched cards or magnetic tape in the mainframe days) and returns the results to a file (or prints them). Often there is a queue of jobs which the system processes as resources become available.
Since the advent of the personal computer, the term "batch" has come to mean automating frequently performed tasks that would otherwise be done interactively by storing those commands in a "batch file" or "script". Usually this file is read by some kind of command interpreter but batch processing is sometimes used with GUI-based applications that define script equivalents for menu selections and other mouse actions. Such a recorded sequence of GUI actions is sometimes called a "macro". This may only exist in memory and may not be saved to disk whereas a batch normally implies something stored on disk.
Unix cron jobs and Windows scheduled tasks are batch processing started at a predefined time by the system whereas mainframe batch jobs were typically initiated by an operator loading them into a queue.
(2009-09-14)
The Jargon File
1.Non-interactive. Hackers use this somewhat more loosely than the traditional technical definitions justify; in particular, switches on a normally interactive program that prepare it to receive non-interactive command input are often referred to as batch mode switches. A batch file is a series of instructions written to be handed to an interactive program running in batch mode.
2.Performance of dreary tasks all at one sitting. “I finally sat down in batch mode and wrote out checks for all those bills; I guess they'll turn the electricity back on next week...”
3.batching up: Accumulation of a number of small tasks that can be lumped together for greater efficiency. “I'm batching up those letters to send sometime” “I'm batching up bottles to take to the recycling center.” [crunchly-2]