package

PAK-ij/ˈpæ.kɪd͡ʒ/

14 meanings of package

1
nouncountable or uncountable
Something that has been packed up for sending or carrying, such as a parcel, box, or envelope.
A package arrived for her at the office, postmarked from Chicago.
He wrapped the package in brown paper and tied it with string before heading to the post office.
Similarparcel, packet, bundle
Note
The concrete sense the others grow from: pack plus the suffix -age, possibly shaped by Anglo-Latin paccagium or Old French pacquage. The suffix makes nouns of an action and of its result, and the word once carried both meanings. The result is the one that survives: the parcel, box or envelope itself. Meanwhile the act of packing has become archaic.
2
nouncountable or uncountable
Something made up of various components offered or treated as a single unit, such as a piece of computer software.
The senator's reform package combines tax cuts with new job training programs.
The office suite is a software package that includes a word processor and a spreadsheet.
Similarbundle, suite, set, program, collection
3
verbtransitive
To pack something or bundle it together.
Workers package the candy in foil before it ships out.
She packaged the fragile glasses in layers of bubble wrap.
Similarpack, wrap, box, bundle, bag
Oppositeunwrap, unpack
4
nouncountable or uncountable
A vacation sold as a single product, with transportation and lodging bundled at one price.
The agency offered a seven-night package to Crete with airfare and an all-inclusive resort.
Hurricane warnings forced thousands of travelers to cancel their packages at the last minute.
Note
A shortening of package holiday, the trip bought as one product. The bare noun works wherever context makes the trip clear, as in "book a package" or "a cheap package to the coast." It has also produced its own verb: to travel this way simply puts the clipped noun to work as a verb.
5
nouncountable or uncountable
Something that resembles a wrapped parcel or compact bundle.
The boxer is a compact package of speed, power, and discipline.
She handed over the sleeping baby, a warm little package in a flannel blanket.
Similarbundle
6
nouncountable or uncountable
A piece of software that has been prepared so it can be installed with a package manager.
Run one command to install the package along with all its dependencies.
She published the package to a public registry so other developers could use it.
Similarlibrary, module
Note
A software engineer's term, narrower than the general bundle of components. Here a package is defined by how it is delivered, not by what it contains. It is prepared for a package manager, the tool that installs, upgrades and removes it, and it usually declares the other packages it depends on. A software package in the everyday sense need not be one.
7
verbtransitive
To prepare a book, television series, or similar product through every stage from research to production, in order to sell the result to a publisher or broadcaster.
Independent producers package documentary series and pitch them to streaming services.
Her firm packaged an entire cookbook (recipes, photography, and design) for a major publisher.
Similarproduce, develop
8
nounvulgareuphemisticcountable or uncountable
A vulgar slang word for the male genitalia.
His stage costume left little of his package to the imagination.
He took a stray elbow to the package and dropped to the floor.
Similarjunk, crotch, groin
Note
A euphemism that remains crude. It avoids the anatomical word, but every listener hears what is meant, so it belongs in jokes and frank talk rather than polite or clinical speech. The image borrows from the everyday parcel, and it appears most often around tight clothing. Velvet Carter's Blissfully Yours (2013) describes swim trunks that "showcased their packages."
9
verbintransitive
To go on a package tour, a trip whose travel and accommodation are booked together as one deal.
Many retirees package to coastal resorts where everything is arranged in advance.
We packaged through Spain last spring instead of planning each stop ourselves.
10
nouncountable or uncountable
A group of related stories presented together across several pages of a publication.
The investigative package on hospital billing ran across six pages of the Sunday edition.
Editors built a package of profiles, charts, and a timeline for the anniversary issue.
Similarfeature, series, spread
Note
Newsroom shorthand for coverage planned as a single unit: a main story with sidebars, photographs and graphics laid out together across several pages. Editors speak of building or running a package. The print version has a broadcast cousin in the finished news report.

11
nouncountable or uncountable
A complete news report ready for broadcast; a wrap.
The correspondent filed a two-minute package on the border negotiations.
Producers cut her package down to ninety seconds for the late newscast.
Similarwrap
Note
Broadcast newsrooms treat it as interchangeable with wrap, as Ted White's Broadcast News: Writing, Reporting, and Producing (2005) does: "prepare a wrap or package." It is a report finished before airtime, typically the reporter's narration cut together with soundbites. That sets it apart from a live shot or a story the anchor simply reads.
12
nouncountable or uncountable
A formation or grouping of players fielded together in football.
The defense lined up in its nickel package on third down.
Coaches installed a new short-yardage package during the bye week.
Similarformation, set
Note
In American football, coaches name these groupings by the players they send on, such as the "dime" defensive package or a "jumbo" package for third and short. The word nearly always follows a modifier like these. It describes who is on the field rather than where they line up, so it pairs naturally with game situations: a short-yardage package, a goal-line package.
13
nounhistoricaluncountable
A charge once made for the packing of goods.
Note
A fee rather than a thing, now met mainly in old mercantile accounts, where the packing charge was itemized beside freight and cartage. Like those charges it is uncountable. It also shows the word doing double duty: the archaic act of packing names the work, and this sense names the price paid for that work.
14
nounarchaicuncountable
The act or process of packing something.
The package of the household goods took the movers a full day.
The Company's instructions to the supracargoes of their ships are very particular as to the mode of package and stowage.
1813, William Milburn, Oriental Commerce: Containing a Geographical Description of the Principal Places in the East Indies
Note
Here package names the doing rather than the thing done, an archaic use that takes no plural and no "a." It belonged to trade and shipping: A Complete Digest of the Theory, Laws, and Practice of Insurance (1781) blames losses on "bad package and stowage," and William Milburn's Oriental Commerce (1813) pairs the same two words. Today packing or packaging does this job; written now, "the package of the goods" would be read as the parcel itself.

Practice

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Origin

This word is formed from 'pack' plus the suffix '-age', possibly influenced by Anglo-Latin 'paccagium' or Old French 'pacquage'.