socket

Pluralsockets

Formssockets, socketing, socketed

1. 1
   nouncountable

   An opening designed to receive a plug or other connecting part, such as for a light bulb.

   Each socket on the power strip can handle a single appliance.

   She unscrewed the old bulb and checked the socket for corrosion.

   Similaroutlet, receptacle

   Note

   A word that began at the working end of a plow: Anglo-Norman soket, "spearhead", a diminutive of Old French soc, "plowshare", from a Celtic word that literally meant "pig's snout". In electrical use it is usually named by what it accepts, as in a 230V socket or a USB socket. Outlet, receptacle and jack are near neighbors, and wall socket fixes it to the wall.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A hollow in a bone into which a part fits, such as an eye or, in a joint, another bone.

   The surgeon realigned the shoulder joint within its socket.

   A tooth extraction leaves an empty socket that slowly heals over.

   Similarcavity, hollow

   Note

   Anatomy uses the word for any bony hollow that holds a part: the eye in its socket, a tooth in the jaw, the head of one bone seated in the hollow of another at a joint. Anatomists call the eye's socket the orbit, but in ordinary speech eye socket is the usual phrase, and a dislocated joint is one knocked out of its socket.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A detachable, hollow metal head that fits onto a wrench and grips a bolt or nut to turn it.

   She snapped a half-inch socket onto the ratchet and turned the bolt.

   Choose a socket that matches the size of the nut exactly.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To place or fit a part into a socket.

   Carefully socket the new processor into the motherboard.

   Technicians socket each tube by hand before testing the amplifier.

   Similarseat, insert, fit, mount

   Note

   The verb keeps a single t throughout: socketing, socketed. The stress falls on the first syllable, so nothing doubles, as with pocketed and rocketed. Socketed serves as both the past tense and the past participle, and the participle often works like an adjective for anything set firmly into a hollow.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   One endpoint of a two-way communication link, used for exchanging data between programs across a network.

   The client opens a socket and waits for the server to respond.

   Each socket is bound to a specific port on the machine.

   Note

   The image carries over from the plug socket: a link is made by connecting at both ends, and each end is a socket. Each one is identified by an address and a port number. The longer name network socket separates it from the Unix socket, whose connection never leaves the machine.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   One endpoint of a two-way named pipe on Unix and Unix-like systems, used for communication between programs.

   On Linux, the database listens on a Unix socket rather than a network port.

   The daemon creates a socket in /var/run for local clients to connect.

   Note

   Here the connection stays on a single machine. The endpoint is reached through a path in the file system, often under a directory like /var/run, and not through an address and port. Programmers usually say Unix socket to make that clear, as in a database that "listens on a Unix socket rather than a network port."

7. 7
   nouncountable

   The hollow part at the top of a candlestick that holds the base of the candle.

   The brass candlestick had a tarnished socket caked with old wax.

   He trimmed the candle's base to fit snugly in the socket.

   Note

   Older prose tells time by this hollow. A candle "burned to its socket" had burned as low as it could go, as in L. S. Lavenu's Erlesmere (1856). Thomas Watson in 1671 turns the image into a figure for a whole life: a minister's light must not go out "till it be in the socket," meaning until it is spent to the very end.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   A hollow tool for grasping and lifting tools that have been dropped into a well-boring.

   When the auger snapped off underground, the crew sent down a socket to retrieve it.

   The socket gripped the lost rod and the winch hauled both to the surface.

9. 9
   nouncountable

   Steel armor mounted on a saddle as protection for a rider's thighs and legs.

   The armorer bolted a socket to the saddle to shield the rider's legs.

   His thighs stayed safe behind the steel socket throughout the charge.

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