patch

Meaning

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. A small area, a small plot of land or piece of ground.
6. A local region of professional responsibility.
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. A piece of material used to cover a wound.
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. 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. 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.
13. A small piece of material that is manually passed through a gun barrel to clean it.
14. A piece of greased cloth or leather used as wrapping for a rifle ball, to make it fit the bore.
15. A cable connecting two pieces of electrical equipment.
16. A sound setting for a musical synthesizer (originally selected by means of a patch cable).
17. An overlay used to obtain a stronger impression.
18. A butterfly of the genus Chlosyne.

mend

repair

maculation

plot of land

plot of ground

temporary hookup

Band Aid

join together

modification

period of time

stopgap measure

tinker with

adhesive plaster

plaster over

adhesive bandage

repair shoes

skin patch

time period

patch code

Frequency

Pronounced as (IPA)

/pæt͡ʃ/

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”).