file [...] [Properly two different words, ultimately of identical etymology: (1) a. Fr. = Pr. fil, It. filo, Sp. hilo: – L. filum thread; (2) a. Fr. file = Pr., and It. fila, Sp. hila: – Com. Romanic *fila, fem. sing.; according to some scholars a vbl. sb. f. filare, to spin, draw out threads, f. L. filum.]
I. Senses chiefly repr. F. fil.
†1. A thread, a. fig. The thread of life. b. transf. Of the nerves: A nerve-cord. Obs.
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†2. The thread, course, or tenor (of a story, argument, etc.). Obs.
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3. a. A string or wire, on which papers and documents are strung for preservation and reference. In recent use extended to various other appliances for holding papers so that they can be easily referred to.
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b. esp. one in a court of law to hold proceedings or documents in a cause, etc.; the list of documents, etc., in a cause.
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†c. A catalogue, list, roll. Obs.
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4. a. A collection of papers placed on a file, or merely arranged in order of date or subject for ready reference.
a 1606 Bacon Adv. Villiers Wks. 1740 III. 566 After you have ranked them into several files, according to the subject matter. 1699 Garth Dispens. 32 Then from the Compter he takes down the File And with Prescriptions lights the solemn Pile. 1806 Naval Chron. XV. 113 Files of newspapers. 1806 Wilberforce in G. Rose Diaries (1860) II. 212 Having just this moment got a file of letters. 1847 Ld. Houghton in Life (1891) I. ix. 40l You can get at.. the newsroom a file of the Times. 1851 D. Jerrold Sr. Giles xii. l21 A man who has a file of receipts to show for everything. 1860 Mrs. Gaskell C. Brontë 30l She sent to Leeds for a file of the ’Mercuries’ of 1812, ’13 and ’14.b. Computers. A collection of related records stored for use by a computer and able to be processed by it. Also attrib. and Comb.
1954 Jrnl. Assoc. Comput. Mach. I. 8/2 A ’master’ tape.. contains the file of unit records as at the last date of processing. 1967 Cox & Grose Organiz. Bibl. Rec. by Computer 19 A file sequence may contain only one file, and this is generally the case when updating procedures are being carried out. 1969 Computers & Humanities III. 132 This search (once through the file), whether for a single interrogation or for several, is called a file-pass.5. Her. = LABEL [...]
6. A disease, ? from its producing an appearance of lines or threads: † a. in trees – Fr.fil (obs.); b. in cattle, dial.
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II. Senses repr. Fr. file.
7. Mil. a. The number of men constituting the depth from front to rear of a formation in line, etc. in file: one behind the other. For Indian, single file see those adjs. rank and file: see rank.
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port [...] [ME. porte, port, a. F. porte: – L. porta, door, gate ...]
1. a. A gate or gateway: from 14th ch., usually that of a city or walled town....]
2. Naut. a. An opening in the side of a ship for entrance and exit, and for the loading and discharge of cargo. b. Each of the apertures in a ship of war through which cannon were pointed; now, an aperture for the admission of light and air; a port-hole.
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c. The cover or shutter of a port-hole; a port-lid.
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e. U. S. An aperture in the body of an aircraft
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3. In various games, a passage through which a ball or the like must pass.
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4. a. Mech. An aperture for the passage of steam, gas, or water; esp. in a steam-engine, for the passage of steam into or out of the cylinder, a steam-port. Also, an aperture by which the mixture enters the cylinder or combustion chamber of an internal-combustion engine, or by which the exhaust gases leave it.
1839 R. S. Robinson Naut. Steam Eng. 101 To shut the steam port before the eduction port, leaving the expansive power of the steam, already in the cylinder, to finish the remainder of the stroke. 1848 Exhaust port [...]. 1859 Rankine Steam Engine (1861) 487 The seat of a steam engine slide valve consists usually of a very accurate plane surface, in which are oblong openings or ports.. at least two in number, 1875 Knight Dict. Mech. 1767/1 The entering port for lire steam is the inlet or induction port; the port of departure is the outlet, eduction, or exhaust port. 1886 D. Clerk Gas Engine vii. 168 An exhaust valve, leading into the space by a port, is also actuated at suitable times from the secondary shaft. 1895 Model Steam Engine 39 When both the ports are equally uncovered, the length of the eccentric-rod is correct. 1913 Autocar Handbk. (ed. 5) ii. 33 During the compression and firing strokes all four ports are out of line, so that the cylinder is completely closed. 1956 F. Preston Pract. Car-Owner i. 19/1 The upward stroke not only drives out burnt gas through an exhaust port in the cylinder wall but also draws in fresh mixture.. through an inlet port. 1966 B. D. Power High Vacuum Pumping Equipment. xi. 387 Conditions remote from the pumping port are being considered. 1967 L. Holmes Odhams New Motor Man. i. 34/1 Valves and a camshaft are not required, as there are ports in the cylinder walls which are uncovered by the moving pistons to let fuel mixture into and exhaust gas out of the cylinders. 1978 L. Pryor Viper (1979) ii. 25 Around the perimeter there are two ports. The fuel comes in one port, explodes between ports, then is expelled through the other port.b. Med. = portal
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c. An aperture in any kind of container or vessel for the entry or egress of fluid.
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d. An aperture in a loudspeaker enclosure.
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e. (i) Electr. A pair of terminals where a signal enters or leaves a network or device, the current flowing into one terminal at any instant being equal to that flowing out of the other. Freq. ellipt. with preceding numeral adj.
1953 Wheeler & Dettinger in Wheeler Monogr. IX. 7 Alter considering many alternatives, the writer has adopted the terra ’portal’ or simply ’port’ as the general designation of an entrance or exit of a network. A self-impedance becomes a ’one-port’. The usual transducer becomes a ’two-port’ with one ’in-port’ and one ’out-port’. The general network is designated a ’multi-port’. 1958 N. Balabanian Network Synthesis i. 9 The simplest network., is the one-terminal pair, or one-port. 1966 L. A. Manning Electr. Circuits xii. 256 A two-port network may be driven by either a voltage or a current source of input, and either voltage or current may be measured at the output. 1973 Nature 3 Aug. 264/1 The switching element was a four-port ferrite switch driven at 1 kHz. 1975 D. G. Fink Electronics Engineers’ Handbk. III. 43 A transistor is a two-port network, although it has three terminals. Connecting an extra wire to one of the terminals provides the extra terminal without violating any network laws.(ii) A place where signals enter or leave a data-transmission system or a device in such a system.
1970 C. S. Car et al. in Proc. AFIPS Conf. XXXVI. 592/2 We assume here that a process has several input-output paths which we will call ports. Each port may be connected to a sequential I/O device, and while connected, transmits information in only one direction. 1972 Proc. IEEE LX. 1409/1 The combiner may have a fixed number of input ports to which the terminals are either always connected, or to which they may be connected, if not already occupied, Ibid. 1412/1 Each remote TYMSAT is capable of accommodating up to 31 simultaneous users... In addition, each CPU has 60 input ports, each corresponding to a different user. 1976 U.S. Agric. Outlooh 1977 (Nat. Agric. Outlook Conf., U.S.) 366 The University user can lease either a 10-character per second or a 30-character per second port. The monthly rate varies.. depending on the speed. 1976 Rep. Computer Board of Managem., 1975-76 (University Coll., London, Computer Centre) 1. 4 For several years we have had a single dial-up line, operating at only 1200 bands. This single port was heavily used.[...]
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Nota