patch

Where “patch” sits in English frequency

Definition

1. 1
   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.
2. 2
   A small piece of anything used to repair damage or a breach; as, a patch on a kettle, a roof, etc.
3. 3
   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.
4. 4
   A small, usually contrasting but always somehow different or distinct, part of something else (location, time, size)
5. 5
   A small area, a small plot of land or piece of ground.
6. 6
   A local region of professional responsibility.
7. 7
   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.
8. 8
   A piece of material used to cover a wound.
9. 9
   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.
10. 10
    A cover worn over a damaged eye, an eyepatch.
11. 11
    A block on the muzzle of a gun, to do away with the effect of dispart, in sighting.
12. 12
    A piece of data intended to modify a computer file by replacing a part of it.
13. 13
    A small piece of material that is manually passed through a gun barrel to clean it.
14. 14
    A piece of greased cloth or leather used as wrapping for a rifle ball, to make it fit the bore.
15. 15
    A cable connecting two pieces of electrical equipment.
16. 16
    A sound setting for a musical synthesizer (originally selected by means of a patch cable).
17. 17
    An overlay used to obtain a stronger impression.
18. 18
    A butterfly of the genus Chlosyne.

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”).

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: aptch,pacth,patcch,patchh,pathc,pattch,ppatch,ptach

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of patch - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.

Frequently Asked Questions