Definition: batch
batch
n 1: all the loaves of bread baked at the same time
2: (often followed by `of') a large number or amount or extent:
"a batch of letters"; "a deal of trouble"; "a lot of
money"; "he made a mint on the stock market"; "it must
have cost plenty" [syn: deal, flock, good deal, great
deal, hatful, heap, lot, mass, mess, mickle,
mint, muckle, peck, pile, plenty, pot, quite
a little, raft, sight, slew, spate, stack, tidy
sum, wad, whole lot, whole slew]
3: a collection of things or persons to be handled together
[syn: clutch]
v : batch together; assemble or process as a batch
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
Batch \Batch\, n. [OE. bache, bacche, fr. AS. bacan to bake; cf. G. geb["a]ck and D. baksel. See Bake, v. t.] 1. The quantity of bread baked at one time. 2. A quantity of anything produced at one operation; a group or collection of persons or things of the same kind; as, a batch of letters; the next batch of business. ``A new batch of Lords.'' --Lady M. W. Montagu.
Source: Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001)
batch adj. 1. Non-interactive. Hackers use this somewhat more loosely than the traditional technical definitions justify; in particular, switches on a normally interactive program that prepare it to receive non-interactive command input are often referred to as `batch mode' switches. A `batch file' is a series of instructions written to be handed to an interactive program running in batch mode. 2. Performance of dreary tasks all at one sitting. "I finally sat down in batch mode and wrote out checks for all those bills; I guess they'll turn the electricity back on next week..." 3. `batching up': Accumulation of a number of small tasks that can be lumped together for greater efficiency. "I'm batching up those letters to send sometime" "I'm batching up bottles to take to the recycling center."
