What about a colored patch on a bird? Is that meaning of the word included in the "piece of cloth" definition, or should it be one on its own? David A se (talk) 18:38, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Does the noun form really need to talk about binary vs text files? --kop 19:09, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
The question of whether patch is a proper noun, IMO, comes down to the question of when are two computer programs the same program. This is complicated. Two otherwise identical programs my be on different computers, different versions of the same program may be on a single computer, two programs may be functionally identical but written by two different people in different programming languages and have entirely different source code, two programs may share a common fuctionality and their source code may share an ancestory but have slightly different functionality. In the case of the patch program there are, AFIK, many different implimentations but there is a single POSIX standard which defines the programs' functionality. Programs that meet (or come close to meeting) the POSIX standard are widely considered to be patch programs -- they are generally named "patch" and there is generally only one of them installed on a single computer system. Patch is a proper noun in the same way that Microsoft Word is; a Microsoft Word program installed on a computer is considered to be substantually the same program as any other Microsoft Word program installed on any other computer, an instance of the Platonic ideal Microsoft Word to which the proper noun refers. This makes sense because no matter what's happening inside the computer, the part that matters to people is the part they can interact with. If two programs behave the same way, they are the same program. All the "copying" that goes on in is, in a sense, an implimentation detail.
Note that this is not really a new issue. How many "Hamlet", the play(s), are there?
Patch as a proper noun is slightly more complicated by the Unix practice of capitalization. Unix cares whether a word is capitalized, so a program named "patch" must be typed as "patch", not "Patch". For this reason, I believe, you always see patch-the-proper-noun written in lower case.
See these manual pages for various different operating systems:
--kop 22:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process.
It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.
Proper noun: (computing) The program that updates old versions of files, based on a record of differences with the newer versions.
This isn't one of the types of proper nouns we cover AFAICT. Best covered by a WP dab link in ]. DCDuring TALK 22:00, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
deleted -- Liliana • 01:30, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
The verb could comme from old french pacher (accord, convene) < Latin pax ("peace"), as in French rabibocher the idea to "tie up bits and pieces" and "make peace" are closely linked. pacher in turn has a deverbal pache ("accord, convention"), dialectally patse different from pais directly from Latin pax.
The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup.
This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.
Sense (noun): (figuratively) A fit.
-- Can someone make sense of this? I haven't found a definition at OneLook I can connect to this. DCDuring TALK 21:51, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
to connect one telephone or radio caller with another or transfer a call to somewhere else Patch me through to headquarters. Microsoft® Encarta® 2009
--Backinstadiums (talk) 16:25, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup (permalink).
This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.
Etymology 1, noun section. Definitions don't match translation tables. Usage notes formatted as usage examples and possibly not just about the usage of the word. Would take a bit of time and multilingual knowledge. DCDuring TALK 14:53, 20 September 2012 (UTC)