Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A small pouch, often consisting of two plastic or foil sheets sealed at the edges, used to distribute single portions of products in the form of liquids, powders, or small pieces.
  • noun A small package or bundle.
  • noun Informal A sizable sum of money.
  • noun A boat, usually a coastal or river steamer, that plies a regular route and carries passengers, freight, and mail.
  • noun A short block of data transmitted in a packet-switching network.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A small pack or package; a parcel; a mail of letters.
  • noun A despatch-vessel; a ship or other vessel employed to convey letters from country to country or from port to port; a vessel employed in carrying mails, goods, and passengers at stated intervals; hence, a vessel starting on regular days, or at an appointed time. Also called packet-boat, packet-ship, packet-vessel.
  • noun The panel of a packhorse.
  • noun A pack (250 leaves) of leaf-metal.
  • To bind up in a package or parcel.
  • To despatch or send in a packet-vessel.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To make up into a packet or bundle.
  • transitive verb To send in a packet or dispatch vessel.
  • intransitive verb To ply with a packet or dispatch boat.
  • noun A small pack or package; a little bundle or parcel.
  • noun Originally, a vessel employed by government to convey dispatches or mails; hence, a vessel employed in conveying dispatches, mails, passengers, and goods, and having fixed days of sailing; a mail boat.
  • noun See Packet, n., 2.
  • noun the day for mailing letters to go by packet; or the sailing day.
  • noun See under Paper.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A small pack or package; a little bundle or parcel; as, a packet of letters, a packet of crisps, a packet of biscuits.
  • noun nautical Originally, a vessel employed by government to convey dispatches or mails; hence, a vessel employed in conveying dispatches, mails, passengers, and goods, and having fixed days of sailing; a mail boat. Packet boat, ship, vessel (Wikipedia).
  • noun botany A specimen envelope containing small, dried plants or containing parts of plants when attached to a larger sheet.
  • noun networking A small fragment of data as transmitted on some types of network, notably Ethernet networks (Wikipedia).
  • verb transitive To make up into a packet or bundle.
  • verb transitive To send in a packet or dispatch vessel.
  • verb intransitive To ply with a packet or dispatch boat.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a small package or bundle
  • noun (computer science) a message or message fragment
  • noun a collection of things wrapped or boxed together
  • noun a boat for carrying mail

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English paket, pekette, small package, bundle, probably diminutive of pak, pack; see pack.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Either from Middle French pacquet, or formed independently from pack + -et.

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Examples

  • Except now I can't remember if it's a 500g packet of butter or a 250g packet*.

    Three embarrassing confessions StyleyGeek 2008

  • Except now I can't remember if it's a 500g packet of butter or a 250g packet*.

    Archive 2008-11-01 StyleyGeek 2008

  • The underlying misunderstanding behind the “debate” about Net Neutrality and DPI boils down to “a packet is a packet is a packet”.

    DPI is GOOD for you: ‘Um – crap’ 2009

  • But hey, if you want shitty-quality video, the stagnation of VOIP, and extremely-laggy surgery-at-a-distance just because “a packet is a packet is a packet”, then by all means get the government to ban stuff like DPI.

    DPI is GOOD for you: ‘Um – crap’ 2009

  • “I hit on the word packet,” he said, “in the sense of small package.”

    Where Wizards Stay Up Late Katie Hafner 2001

  • “I hit on the word packet,” he said, “in the sense of small package.”

    Where Wizards Stay Up Late Katie Hafner 2001

  • I will certainly make them into a parcel, with some songs I have long meant to send you. and you will receive it by next Thursday night by Avey — But I write this quickly that you may have it tomorrow evening and know that the packet is coming. —

    Letter 183 2009

  • Others like Public Knowledge take the position that every packet is equal.

    Archive 2009-06-01 Rebecca Tushnet 2009

  • In this packet is community information, police links so on so forth, but they also included the Colorado Springs CO, sex offender registry.

    Heroes or Villains? 2010

  • STB has the press packet from the event posted -- it's pretty heady stuff, especially since the mayor has found a way to solve the problem that "In King County, African-Americans are 60 percetn (sic) more likely to be obese".

    “Walk Bike Ride” Plan Would Narrow Nickerson for Bikes « PubliCola 2010

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