Definition of "patch"

patch¹

/pæt͡ʃ/

noun
plural patches
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. A small piece of anything used to repair damage or a breach; as, a patch on a kettle, a roof, etc.
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. A small, usually contrasting but always somehow different or distinct, part of something else (location, time, size)
5. (specifically) A small area, a small plot of land or piece of ground.
  Quotations
  Just the suggestion that a good blueberry patch was near would bring everything to a standstill.
  1940 November, “Notes and News: Railway Operation Ad Lib”, in Railway Magazine, pages 611–612
6. A local region of professional responsibility.
  Quotations
  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.
  2012, Bruce Grundy, Martin Hirst, Janine Little, So You Want To Be A Journalist?: Unplugged, page 44
  […] 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.
  1980, Noel Parry, Michael Rustin, Carole Satyamurti, Social Work, Welfare & the State, page 101
7. (historical) 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.
  Quotations
  Your black patches you wear variously.
  1625, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, “The Elder Brother. A Comedy.”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1679, Act III, scene v
  ...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.
  1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Another London Life”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 169
8. (medicine) A piece of material used to cover a wound.
9. (medicine) 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. (medicine) A cover worn over a damaged eye, an eyepatch.
11. A block on the muzzle of a gun, to do away with the effect of dispart, in sighting.
12. (computing) A patch file, a file that describes changes to be made to a computer file or files, usually changes made to a computer program that fix a programming bug.
  Quotations
  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.
  2019 October, Roger Ford, “Power failure highlights specification confusion”, in Modern Railways, page 28
13. (firearms) A small piece of material that is manually passed through a gun barrel to clean it.
14. (firearms) A piece of greased cloth or leather used as wrapping for a rifle ball, to make it fit the bore.
15. (often patch cable, patch cord, etc.; see also patch panel) A cable connecting two pieces of electrical equipment.
16. (music) A sound setting for a musical synthesizer (originally selected by means of a patch cable).
  Quotations
  A synthesizer comes with controls to store patches and edit them. Some high-end synthesizers even have floppy disks for additional patch storage.
  1988 November 28, “MIDI: Computers and Music”, in U-M Computing News, volume 3, number 21, The University of Michigan Computing Center, page 11
17. (printing, historical) An overlay used to obtain a stronger impression.
18. A butterfly of the genus Chlosyne.
verb
third-person singular simple present patches, present participle patching, simple past and past participle patched
1. To mend by sewing on a piece or pieces of cloth, leather, or the like
  Quotations
  That concertina was a wonder in its way. The handles that was on it first was wore out long ago, and he'd made new ones of braided rope yarn. And the bellows was patched in more places than a cranberry picker's overalls.
  1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 8, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
2. To mend with pieces; to repair by fastening pieces on.
3. To make out of pieces or patches, like a quilt.
4. To join or unite the pieces of; to patch the skirt.
5. To employ a temporary, removable electronic connection, as one between two components in a communications system.
  Quotations
  [the control panel of hovercraft The Logos has lit up after being jumped by The Hammer]Sparky: She lives again.Crew member of The Hammer via radio: You want us to patch an uplink to reload the software, Sparky?Sparky: Yeah, that'd be swell. And can you clean the windshield while you're at it?
  2003, The Matrix Revolutions, Scene: Starting the Logos, 00:43:09 - 00:43:32
6. (generally with the particle "up") To repair or arrange in a hasty or clumsy manner
7. (computing) To make the changes a patch describes; to apply a patch to the files in question. Hence:
  1. To fix or improve a computer program without a complete upgrade.
  2. To make a quick and possibly temporary change to a program.
8. To connect two pieces of electrical equipment using a cable.

patch²

/pæt͡ʃ/

noun
plural patches
1. (archaic) A paltry fellow; a rogue; a ninny; a fool.
  Quotations
  Shylock:The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder,Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by dayMore than the wild-cat; […]
  c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene v]
  Caliban: What a pied ninny's this! Thou scurvy patch! […]
  1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene ii]

Definition of "patch"

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patch2

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patch²