Batch \Batch\, n. [OE. bache, bacche, fr. AS. bacan to bake; cf.
   G. geb[aum]ck and D. baksel. See Bake, v. t.]
   [1913 Webster]
   1. The quantity of bread baked at one time.
      [1913 Webster]

   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.
      [1913 Webster]

	

	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"; "see the rest of the
       winners in our huge passel of photos"; "it must have cost
       plenty"; "a slew of journalists"; "a wad of money" [syn:
       batch, deal, flock, good deal, great deal,
       hatful, heap, lot, mass, mess, mickle, mint,
       mountain, muckle, passel, peck, pile, plenty,
       pot, quite a little, raft, sight, slew, spate,
       stack, tidy sum, wad]
    3: a collection of things or persons to be handled together
       [syn: batch, clutch]
    v 1: batch together; assemble or process as a batch

	

	85 Moby Thesaurus words for "batch":
   amount, array, assortment, block, budget, bulk, bunch, bundle,
   chunk, clod, clump, cluster, clutch, collection, considerable,
   copse, count, crop, deal, dose, gob, gobs, good deal, great deal,
   group, grouping, groupment, grove, hassock, heap, heaps, hunk,
   knot, large amount, lashings, loads, loaf, lot, lots, lump, make,
   making, mass, measure, mess, mint, nugget, number, oodles, pack,
   parcel, part, pat, peck, pile, piles, portion, pot, quantity,
   quite a little, raft, rafts, ration, run, scads, set, shock, sight,
   slew, slews, small amount, spate, stack, stacks, stook, sum,
   thicket, tidy sum, tuft, tussock, volume, wad, wads, whole slew,
   wisp

	

	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.?

    [crunchly-2]

	

	batch processing
batch

    A system that takes a sequence (a "batch") of
   commands or jobs, executes them and returns the results, all
   without human intervention.  This contrasts with an
   interactive system where the user's commands and the
   computer's responses are interleaved during a single run.

   A batch system typically takes its commands from a disk file
   (or a set of punched cards or magnetic tape in the
   mainframe days) and returns the results to a file (or prints
   them).  Often there is a queue of jobs which the system
   processes as resources become available.

   Since the advent of the personal computer, the term "batch"
   has come to mean automating frequently performed tasks that
   would otherwise be done interactively by storing those
   commands in a "batch file" or "script".  Usually this file
   is read by some kind of command interpreter but batch
   processing is sometimes used with GUI-based applications that
   define script equivalents for menu selections and other mouse
   actions.  Such a recorded sequence of GUI actions is sometimes
   called a "macro".  This may only exist in memory and may not
   be saved to disk whereas a batch normally implies something
   stored on disk.

   Unix cron jobs and Windows scheduled tasks are batch
   processing started at a predefined time by the system whereas
   mainframe batch jobs were typically initiated by an operator
   loading them into a queue.

   (2009-09-14)