Other forms: batches
A batch is a set of things made or dealt with together, all at one go. A batch of scones out of the oven, a batch of passport applications worked through on a Tuesday, a batch of new recruits arriving on the same bus.
Baking is the home ground — first batch, second batch, the last batch always slightly darker — but the word spreads anywhere things are produced in runs. Paint varies between batches, medicine boxes carry a batch number, and a bad batch is the phrase for the run that went wrong. There is a verb too: batch the invoices, batch-cook on a Sunday. Computers borrowed it wholesale, so batch processing means jobs run together with nobody watching. Keep it apart from bunch: a bunch is things gathered together, a batch is things made together.
1nounbatchA set of things made or produced together at the same time.~25%
“The first batch of bread came out too pale.”
Patterna batch of + noun (cookies, bread, scones) · in batches · a fresh / new batch · batch cooking
2noundealtA group of things or people dealt with together.~73%
“She marked a batch of essays that evening.”
3verbhandledTo group things so they can be handled in one go.~2%
“He batches his emails and answers them all at five.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 16 sentences found in the wild and placed 16 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
batch is a group.
bATCH → a box of MATCHes made all at once
Every match in the box was made on the same day, by the same machine, all together: one batch.
hooks ontomatch
Old English bæċċ meant 'something baked' — one baking, all at once. It sits beside bacan, 'to bake', and beyond English beside German Gebäck, baked goods. Everything modern about the word, batch processing included, is still one ovenful.
Proto-Germanic
*bakkuz — baking, baked goods
Proto-West Germanic
*bakku
Old English
*bæċċ — something baked
Middle English
bach
English, today
batch
Built from
From Middle English bach, bache, bahche, from Old English bæċċ (“something baked”), of unknown origin, but possibly from Proto-West Germanic bakku, from Proto-Germanic bakkuz (“baking, baked goods”), cognate with Middle High German becke (“something baked, pastry, baking, bakery”). Related also to bacan (“to bake”), Old English ġebæc (“something baked”), Dutch gebak, German Gebäck, Dutch baksel.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA