patch

CEFRB1

/pæt͡ʃ/

noun · verb

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A small area that differs from or covers a larger surface.

  2. 02

    verb

    To repair a hole or damaged area.

Examples

  • We've been through a rough patch, but I hope it will have made us stronger.

  • A black dog with a white patch on its back

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. A small piece of anything used to repair damage or a breach; as, a patch on a kettle, a roof, etc.

  2. A piece of cloth, or other suitable material, sewed or otherwise fixed upon a garment to repair or strengthen it, especially upon an old garment to cover a hole.

  3. A piece of any size, used to repair something for a temporary period only, or that it is temporary because it is not meant to last long or will be removed as soon as a proper repair can be made, which will happen in the near future.

More examples

In context

  • Let's patch up our argument.

  • Before you can fix a dam, you have to apply a patch to the hole so that everything can dry off.

  • His sleeves had patches on the elbows where different fabric had been sewn on to replace material that had worn away.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

He sewed a denim blank over the hole in his old jeans.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

From Middle English patche, of uncertain origin. Perhaps an alteration of earlier Middle English placche (“patch, spot, piece of cloth”), from Old English *plæċċ, *pleċċ (“a spot, mark, patch”), from Proto-West Germanic *plakkju, from Proto-Germanic *plakjō (“spot, stain”). For the loss of l compare pat from Middle English platten. Germanic cognates would then include Middle English plecke, dialectal English pleck (“plot of ground, patch”), West Frisian plak (“place, spot”), Low German Plakk, Plakke (“spot, piece, patch”), Dutch plek (“spot, place, stain, patch”), Dutch plak (“piece, slab”), Swedish plagg (“garment”), Faroese plagg (“cloth, rag”). Or, possibly a variant of Old French pieche...