▪ I. batch, n.1
(bætʃ)
Forms: 5 bahche, 5–6 bache, batche, 7 bach, 6– batch.
[ME. bache, bacche, repr. an unrecorded OE. *bæcce, f. bacan to bake: cf. wake, watch, make, match, speak, speech.]
† 1. The process of baking. Obs.
| 1440 Promp. Parv. 21 Bahche, or bakynge (v.r. batche), pistura. 1551 T. Wilson Logike 42 b, Except the baker doe his part also in the batch. |
2. a. concr. A baking; the quantity of bread produced at one baking.
| 1461–83 Ord. R. Househ. 70 He shall trulye delyver into the bredehouse..the whole numbyr of his bache. 1530 Palsgr. 197/1 Batche of bredde—fournée de pain. a 1656 Bp. Hall Rem. Wks. (1660) 186 They had no leisure to make up their bach. 1760 T. Hutchinson Hist. Col. Mass. i. (1765) 23 The last batch was in the oven. 1856 Kane Arct. Exp. II. xix. 192 We..baked a large batch of bread. |
| fig. 1606 Shakes. Tr. & Cr. v. i. 5 Thou crusty batch of Nature, what's the newes? |
† b. ellipt. The bread itself: cf. bread of life. Obs.
| 1648 Earl Westmld. Otia Sacra (1879) 92 Those blest With the True batch of Life may ever rest So satisfi'd. |
† 3. fig. and transf. The sort of ‘lot’ to which a thing belongs by origin (as loaves do to their own batch). Obs.
| 1598 B. Jonson Ev. Man in Hum. i. ii. (1616) 9 One is a Rimer Sir, o' your owne batch. 1641 Milton Ch. Discip. ii. Wks. (1851) 42 This worthy Motto, No Bishop, no King is of the same batch, and infanted out of the same feares. 1705 Hickeringill Priest-cr. (1721) I. 47 All sorts of Priest-craft are of one Leven and one Batch. |
4. a. The quantity of flour or dough to be used for one baking. b. The quantity of corn sent at one time to the mill to be ground. dial.
| 1549 Coverdale Erasm. Par. 1 Cor. vi. 6 A lytle leauen sowreth the whole batche, wherwith it is myngled. 1570 Levins Manip. 38 A batche, fermentum. 1579 Langham Gard. Health (1633) 90 Bake a loafe of wheat meale as it cometh from the mill in the midst of the batch. 1796 W. Marshall Midl. Count. II. Gloss., Batch, a grist; a quantity of corn sent to mill. 1859 Autobiog. Beggar-boy 65 To bring the farmers' batches to be ground, and take them home when made into meal. |
5. transf. A quantity produced at one operation, e.g. a brewing; a lot. arch.
| 1713 Lond. & Country Brew. i. (1742) 31 You are welcome to a good Batch of my October [Beer]. 1878 M. E. Braddon Open Verd. I. i. 13 That last batch of soup was excellent. |
6. a. A quantity of anything coming at a time, an instalment. b. A number of things or persons introduced, put, or treated together; a set.
| a. 1833 Marryat P. Simple (1863) 85, I have just received a batch of prize-money. 1840 Hood Up Rhine 58, I am not going to favour you with a batch of politics. 1881 Raymond Mining Gloss., Batch (Cornw.), the quantity of ore sent to the surface by a pare of men. |
| b. [1598; cf. 4.] 1632 Massinger City Mad. iv. i, A whole batch, sir, Almost of the same leaven. 1793 Ld. Auckland Corr. III. 75 A new batch of visitors, who are coming for the day. 1845 Disraeli Sybil (1863) 39 A baronet of the earliest batch. 1863 Kinglake Crimea (1876) I. xiv. 297 Shot by platoons and in batches. 1872 Black Adv. Phaeton xxxi. 413 The batch of letters awaiting us in Edinburgh. |
c. The quantity of stricks or bundles of jute laid out at one time for treatment. (Cf. batch v. 1.)
| 1880 Encycl. Brit. XIII. 803/1 These batches [of jute], which generally contained from 4 to 5 tons each, were allowed to lie from twenty-four to forty-eight hours. 1893 W. Leggatt Jute Spinning 21 The batch put down for ordinary hessian warps should be composed of six bales. |
d. Calico-printing and Dyeing. The mass of material collected in ‘batching’ (cf. batch v. 2). Also attrib.
| 1911 Trotman & Thorp Princ. Bleaching and Finishing Cotton xxviii. 304 The chief use of the machine is to transfer cloth from the lap to the batch form. Ibid., The bearings of the batch roller work in vertical slides under the pressure of springs or weights, and can be raised and held with a pawl to unroll a part of the batch for detailed inspection. |
e. Glass-making = frit n.2 1.
| a 1877 Knight Dict. Mech. I. 246/1 Batch,..the frit of a glass-maker compounded and sifted for use, ready for the glass-pot or crucible. 1933 Antiquity VII. 420 Glass workers use the term ‘batch’ to denote the raw ingredients of the glass before fusing. |
7. attrib., as in batch-bread, batch-flour. Also in various combinations denoting a machine or process that treats a batch of material (esp. as opposed to a continuous process).
| 1862 Lond. Rev. 16 Aug. 140 Baking rolls and fancy bread, taking the batch-bread out of the oven. 1878 Halliwell s.v., Coarse flour is sometimes called batch flour. 1940 Chambers's Techn. Dict. 80/2 Batch furnace, a furnace in which the charge is placed and heated to the requisite temperature, subsequently being withdrawn... Distinguished from continuous furnace. 1954 Economist 20 Feb. 537/2 Strenuous attempts to convert their batch processes to the continuous processes which have so much lower labour costs. 1955 J. G. Davis Dict. Dairying (ed. 2) 136 Batch pasteurisation is a satisfactory and economical method for small factories. 1957 Economist 16 Nov. 621/1 Glass for spectacles..has to be of very precise physical qualities... Until recently this has meant making it in a form of batch process known as the pot roast method. 1957 Ibid. 23 Nov. 645 Continuous batch testing with the latest scientific equipment. 1958 A. Hackney Private Life vii. 65 Num⁓nums and Chokers are still in batch production, but the Bumper Bars themselves are in continuous-flow production. |
Add: [6.] f. Computing. A group of records processed together in a single operation using the same program.
| 1956 Jrnl. Assoc. Computing Machinery III. 169 If this [address] function were known in advance for a particular batch of data and if it could be easily evaluated..all items could be inserted initially in correct memory locations. 1959 J. Jeenel Programming for Digital Computers ix. 419 This approach to a file maintenance application implies that a number, or ‘batch’ of transactions is collected and sorted into the order of the master file before the transaction records are used to update the master records. 1964 T. W. McRae Impact of Computers on Accounting vi. 164 The computer..may run on to the end of the particular batch of data being processed. 1970 O. Dopping Computers & Data Processing xvi. 252 The updating can be done in batches (‘batch processing’) or in real time. 1980 C. S. French Computer Sci. xvii. 92 At an early stage in processing, documents are arranged in batches, by being placed in a wallet or folder, or clipped together. |
[7.] b. Special Combs.: batch processing, (a) in chemical engineering, the processing of raw materials in batches as opposed to continuously; (b) Computing, the processing of previously collected batches of data, computing jobs, etc., esp. without user intervention and usu. off-line, as a background process or at a time of low system activity.
| 1948 C. Tyler Chem. Engin. Econ. (ed. 3) v. 77 The trend in recent years has been toward the substitution of continuous for *batch processing. 1957 [see chemical engineering s.v. chemical a. 4 b]. 1957 IBM Jrnl. Res. & Devel. I. 63/1 ‘Batch’ processing techniques can be reserved for those applications, such as statistical analysis, that have an inherent batching requirement. 1979 J. E. Rowley Mechanised In-House Information Syst. i. 27 A data base can be designed for batch processing or real-time processing. 1980 C. S. French Computer Sci. xxxvi. 286 By its very nature a batch processing system will involve a degree of ‘delay’. |
hence (as a back-formation) batch-process v. trans.
| 1964 Datamation May 39/1 The monitor would enable users to *batch process any mix of scientific, commercial, testing and production jobs. 1979 J. E. Rowley Mechanised In-House Information Syst. i. 65 Remote entry job processing... An on-line terminal is used to enter a job into the queue of jobs to be batch processed by the computer. |
Sense 7 b in vol. 1 becomes 7 c. Add: [7.] b. spec. in Computing, in the sense ‘pertaining to, intended for, or involving batch processing’.
| 1967 Technology Week 23 Jan. 59/2 (Advt.), Design..language processors for various computer systems, including batch, remote-batch, and time-sharing configurations. 1976 Scotsman 25 Nov. 17/5 (Advt.), Experienced Systems Analyst/Programmer. We..require additional staff to join our existing team..in the development of a wide range of batch applications. 1985 Personal Computer World Feb. 189/2 Records retrieved in the above-mentioned way may then be edited using the cursor controls, or you can carry out changes in a ‘batch’ mode. |
[c.] batch job Computing, a job scheduled to be executed by means of batch processing.
| 1980 C. S. French Computer Sci. xxx. 261 With frequent changes a single source statement under time sharing may require all the control given to a whole *batch job. 1982 Electronics 10 Mar. 124/1 DJC allows the user of any work station to export a batch job to the NRM for remote execution. 1989 C. Stoll Cuckoo's Egg xxviii. 139 These were batch jobs, submitted during the day and postponed until evening. |
▪ II. batch, n.2
[? a variant of back n.2]
A vessel used in brewing.
| 1697 View Penal Laws 21 By which any Beer..may be conveyed into or out of such Tun, Batch or Float. |
▪ III. batch
mod. dial. form of bache.
▪ IV. batch, v.
(bætʃ)
[f. batch n.1]
1. trans. To treat (bundles of raw fibre of jute, wool, etc.) in batches for various purposes. Hence ˈbatching vbl. n., the action or process by which this is done; also attrib. Also ˈbatcher, an operative who does this.
| 1880 Chemical News XLII. 77/2 The fibres are matted together by a resinous constituent, and in order to fit them for the operations of combing they are subjected to the preliminary treatment of ‘batching’. This consists in moistening the fibre with a mixture of oil, [etc.]. 1880 Encycl. Brit. XIII. 802/2 (Jute) Batching or Softening. 1881 Instr. Census Clerks (1885) 71 Jute preparing: Preparer. Batcher. 1882 P. Sharp Flax, Tow, & Jute Spinning 158 In this system the jute is batched in the same way as tow. 1893 W. Leggatt Jute Spinning 19 The batchers..break up the large streaks or heads into streaks of about two pounds each. Ibid., The jute warehouse, which will be seen from a reference to the ground plan to adjoin the batching house. 1921 Mackinnon Social & Industr. Hist. Scot. ii. 115 This is done in the ‘batching room’, where the raw material is sprinkled with oil and water. 1921 Dict. Occup. Terms (1927) §398 Batcher (flax and hemp); (i) arranges different qualities of tow in layers to facilitate mixing of tow for carder; (ii) applies water and oil to opened out hemp, to soften fibre and to prevent it from ‘licking up’ during..carding. 1943 J. S. Huxley TVA 23 From the quarry the rock was carried to the crusher, thence to the screening plant, the batching plant and concrete mixers. 1950 Engineering 20 Jan. 81/3 In the batching process, the quantities of cement and..aggregate are best measured by weight. 1952 Electronic Engin. XXIV. 205 Electronics can accurately control a mechanical batching device. |
2. Calico-printing and Dyeing. To collect into a ‘batch’ or mass. Hence ˈbatching vbl. n. (also attrib.).
| 1876 Encycl. Brit. IV. 685/2 In printing, the white calico is batched at C, and the cloth D passes inwards over tension rails. 1911 H. R. Carter Bleaching, Dyeing of Flax, etc. 90 The cloth..is..‘batched’ on to a larger roller, upon which it is removed for subsequent processes—washing, drying, &c. 1911 Trotman & Thorp Princ. Bleaching & Finishing Cotton xxviii. 304 When wound up, the bearings of the batching roller are racked up and the roll unwound or removed. Ibid., The winding-on frame, or canroy, is a frame with tensioning staves, rollers, and scrimp rails, and batching tackle. |
▪ V. batch
var. bach n. 2, bach v.