The AI-powered English dictionary
plural wildcards
(computing) A character that takes the place of any other character or string that is not known or specified. quotations examples
A wildcard character is a symbol that you can use with many DCL commands to apply the command to several files at once, rather than specifying each file individually.
1968, Digital Equipment Corporation, VAX/VMS 319(5864), page 751, Section 2.1.2 Using Wildcard Characters
(also written wild card) An uncontrolled or unpredictable element. quotations examples
There are several technical wildcards, such as how the larger battery packs--four times larger than those of the Prius--will withstand the rigors of city driving, […]
2008 February 8, Eli Kintisch, “From Gasoline Alleys to Electric Avenues”, in Science, 319(5864), page 751
(also written wild card) An element, often deliberately concealed, which is withheld for contingency. examples
(sports, card games) Alternative form of wild card. quotations examples
German wildcard Sabine Lisicki conquered her nerves to defeat France's Marion Bartoli and take her amazing Wimbledon run into the semi-finals.
2011 June 28, Piers Newbery, “Wimbledon 2011: Sabine Lisicki beats Marion Bartoli”, in BBC Sport
third-person singular simple present wildcards, present participle wildcarding, simple past and past participle wildcarded
(computing) To replace or supplement with a wildcard character to allow matching against a range of possible values. quotations examples
The unfortunate consequence is that document elements cannot be wildcarded because a schema needs to provide a closed list of possible document elements.
2002, Eric Van der Vlist, XML Schema, page 183