packet
English
Alternative forms
- pacquet (obsolete)
Etymology
From Middle English pacquet; either from Middle French pacquet, or formed independently from pak and -et.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈpækɪt/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - (General American) IPA(key): /ˈpækət/
- Rhymes: -ækɪt
- Hyphenation: pack‧et
Noun
packet (plural packets)
- A small pack or package; a little bundle or parcel
- Don't throw the crisp packet on the floor!
- a packet of letters
- a packet of biscuits
- (archaic) a travel bag containing clothing, nightwear and other accessories.
- (nautical) 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).
- 1910, Emerson Hough, “A Lady in Company”, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 639762314:
- 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.
- 1961 August, “New traffic flows in South Wales”, in Trains Illustrated, page 492:
- 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.
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- (botany) A specimen envelope containing small, dried plants or containing parts of plants when attached to a larger sheet.
- 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page vii:
- 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 […].
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- (networking) A small fragment of data as transmitted on some types of network, notably Ethernet networks (Wikipedia).
- (South Africa) A plastic bag.
- 2012 August 6, Wendy Knowler, Plastic packets: who bags the profits?
- (slang) Synonym of package (“male genitalia”)
- (informal) A large amount of money.
- It'll cost a packet to fix this.
Derived terms
- catch a packet
- fag packet
- packet boat
- packet station
- red packet
- steam-packet
Translations
small pack
|
vessel to convey mail
|
small fragment of data
|
Verb
packet (third-person singular simple present packets, present participle packeting, simple past and past participle packeted)
- (transitive) To make up into a packet or bundle.
- (transitive) To send in a packet or dispatch vessel.
- 1636, John Ford, The Fancies Chaste and Noble
- Her husband was packeted to France.
- 1636, John Ford, The Fancies Chaste and Noble
- (intransitive) To ply with a packet or dispatch boat.
- (transitive, Internet) To subject to a denial-of-service attack in which a large number of data packets are sent.
- 2007, Committee on Improving Cybersecurity Research in the United States, Toward a Safer and More Secure Cyberspace
- Typically, one hacker will annoy another; the offended party replies by launching a denial-of-service attack against the offender. These attacks—known as packeting—tend to be of limited duration […]
- 2007, Committee on Improving Cybersecurity Research in the United States, Toward a Safer and More Secure Cyberspace
Translations
(transitive) make into a packet
|
(transitive) send in a packet vessel
(intransitive) to ply with a packet or dispatch boat
See also
- datagram
- packetlike
- packet radio
- packet switching, packet-switching
Further reading
- packet in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
packet on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Anagrams
- Ptacek, peck at
German
Alternative forms
- packt
Pronunciation
Audio (file)
Verb
packet
- imperative plural of packen
Portuguese
Noun
packet m (plural packets)
- (networking) packet (small fragment of data)
Swedish
Noun
packet
- definite singular of pack.