n. 1. A quick succession of slight sounds; as, the patter of rain; the patter of little feet. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Glib and rapid speech; a voluble harangue. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. The cant of a class; patois; as, thieves's patter; gypsies' patter. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. The language or oratory of a street peddler, conjurer, or the like, hence, glib talk; a voluble harangue; mere talk; chatter; also, specif., rapid speech, esp. as sometimes introduced in songs. [ Cant or Colloq. ] [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

v. i. [ imp. & p. p. Pattered p. pr. & vb. n. Pattering. ] [ Freq. of pat to strike gently. ] 1. To strike with a quick succession of slight, sharp sounds; as, pattering rain or hail; pattering feet. [ 1913 Webster ]

The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard. Thomson. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To mutter; to mumble; as, to patter with the lips. Tyndale. [ In this sense, and in the following, perh. from paternoster. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

3. To talk glibly; to chatter; to harangue. [ Colloq. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

I've gone out and pattered to get money. Mayhew. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. 1. To spatter; to sprinkle. [ R. ] “And patter the water about the boat.” J. R. Drake. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. [ See Patter, v. i., 2. ] To mutter; as prayers. [ 1913 Webster ]

[ The hooded clouds ] patter their doleful prayers. Longfellow. [ 1913 Webster ]

To patter flash, to talk in thieves' cant. [ Slang ] [ 1913 Webster ]

n. One who patters, or talks glibly; specifically, a street peddler. [ Cant, Eng. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ imp. & p. p. Patterned p. pr. & vb. n. Patterning. ] 1. To make or design (anything) by, from, or after, something that serves as a pattern; to copy; to model; to imitate. Milton. [ 1913 Webster ]

[ A temple ] patterned from that which Adam reared in Paradise. Sir T. Herbert. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To serve as an example for; also, to parallel. [ 1913 Webster ]

To pattern after, to imitate; to follow. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ OE. patron, F. patron, a patron, also, a pattern. See Patron. ] 1. Anything proposed for imitation; an archetype; an exemplar; that which is to be, or is worthy to be, copied or imitated; as, a pattern of a machine. [ 1913 Webster ]

I will be the pattern of all patience. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. A part showing the figure or quality of the whole; a specimen; a sample; an example; an instance. [ 1913 Webster ]

He compares the pattern with the whole piece. Swift. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. Stuff sufficient for a garment; as, a dress pattern. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. Figure or style of decoration; design; as, wall paper of a beautiful pattern. [ 1913 Webster ]

5. Something made after a model; a copy. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

The patterns of things in the heavens. Heb. ix. 23. [ 1913 Webster ]

6. Anything cut or formed to serve as a guide to cutting or forming objects; as, a dressmaker's pattern. [ 1913 Webster ]

7. (Founding) A full-sized model around which a mold of sand is made, to receive the melted metal. It is usually made of wood and in several parts, so as to be removed from the mold without injuring it. [ 1913 Webster ]

8. a recognizable characteristic relationship or set of relationships between the members of any set of objects or actions, or the properties of the members; also, the set having a definable relationship between its members. [ PJC ]

Various collections of objects or markings are spoken of as a pattern. Thus: the distribution of bomb or shell impacts on a target area, or of bullet holes in a target; a set of traits or actions that appear to be consistent throughout the members of a group or over time within a group, as behavioral pattern, traffic pattern, dress pattern; the wave pattern for a spoken word; the pattern of intensities in a spectrum; a grammatical pattern. [ PJC ]

9. (Gun.) A diagram showing the distribution of the pellets of a shotgun on a vertical target perpendicular to the plane of fire. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

10. the recommended flight path for an airplane to follow as it approaches an airport for a landing. Same as landing pattern. [ PJC ]

11. an image or diagram containing lines, usually horizontal, vertical, and diagonal, sometimes of varying widths, used to test the resolution of an optical instrument or the accuracy of reproduction of image copying or transmission equipment. Same as test pattern. [ PJC ]

pattern box,
pattern chain, or
pattern cylinder (Figure Weaving), devices, in a loom, for presenting several shuttles to the picker in the proper succession for forming the figure. --
Pattern card. (a) A set of samples on a card. (b) (Weaving) One of the perforated cards in a Jacquard apparatus. --
Pattern reader, one who arranges textile patterns. --
Pattern wheel (Horology), a count-wheel. [ 1913 Webster ]

adj. Having describable patterns, especially patterns of colors. [ Narrower terms: banded, blotched, blotchy, splotched, brindled, brindle, brinded, tabby, burled, checked, checkered, dappled, mottled, dotted, flecked, specked, speckled, stippled, figured, floral, flowered, laced, marbled, marbleized, moire, watered, pinstriped, pinstripe(prenominal), slashed, streaked, spotted, sprigged, streaked, streaky, striped, stripy, tessellated, veined, venose ] plain, solid [ WordNet 1.5 +PJC ]

adj. 1. resembling a pattern or shape or outline. a gigantic black and patternlike figure against the eastern sky [ WordNet 1.5 ]

n. Someone who makes patterns (as for sewing or carpentery or metalworking). [ WordNet 1.5 ]

n. [ See pattern. ] (Computers) A technique in automated data analysis, usually performed on a computer, by which a group of characteristic properties of an unknown object is compared with the comparable groups of characteristics of a set of known objects, to discover the idenity or proper classification of the unknown object. There are two major types of pattern matching, statistical pattern matching and syntactic pattern matching. In statistical pattern matching, the criteria used to recognize identity or class membership vary, but in general some combination of the differences in the groups of characteristics of known and unknown objects are considered to be a measure of the difference ("distance") between them, and the closest known object or objects are viewed as presenting the most likely identity or class for the unknown object. In syntactic pattern matching, a set of known patterns, e.g. as in the possible order of parts of speech in a language, is defined, and the unknown pattern is compared to find that known pattern or patterns which matches the unknown exactly. In general, statistical pattern matching is used where properties of objects with continuous values are being compared, and syntactic pattern matching where a complex arrangement of at least two different objects may be built by application of a set of rules (a "grammar") for combining the objects in a specified order. Examples of the latter are natural and formal languages. [ PJC ]