patent
UK /ˈpeɪtənt/ · US /ˈpætənt/ noun, verb, adjective
Forms patents patenting patented
- noun An official document granting an appointment, privilege, or right, or some property or title; letters patent.
- noun (originally) A grant of a monopoly over the manufacture, sale, and use of goods.
- noun A declaration issued by a government agency that the inventor of a new invention has the sole privilege of making, selling, or using the claimed invention for a specified period.
- noun (US, historical) A specific grant of ownership of a piece of real property; a land patent.
- noun (by extension) A product in respect of which a patent (sense 1.2.2) has been obtained.
- noun A licence or (formal) permission to do something.
- noun A characteristic or quality that one possesses; in particular (hyperbolic) as if exclusively; a monopoly.
- noun (gambling) The combination of seven bets on three selections, offering a return even if only one bet comes in.
- verb To (successfully) register (a new invention) with a government agency to obtain the sole privilege of its manufacture, sale, and use for a specified period.
- verb (US, historical) To obtain (over a piece of real property) a specific grant of ownership.
- verb (transitive, figuratively) To be closely associated or identified with (something); to monopolize.
- adjective Conspicuous; open; unconcealed.
- adjective (baking) Of flour: fine, and consisting mostly of the inner part of the endosperm of the grain from which it is milled.
- adjective (medicine) Open, unobstructed; specifically, especially of the ductus arteriosus or foramen ovale in the heart, having not closed as would have happened in normal development. “She has a patent ductus arteriosus that will require surgery to close.”
- adjective (medicine, veterinary medicine) Of an infection: in the phase when the organism causing it can be detected by clinical tests.
- adjective Explicit and obvious. “Those claims are patent nonsense.”
- adjective Especially of a document conferring some privilege or right: open to public perusal or use. “letters patent”
- adjective Appointed or conferred by letters patent.
- adjective (botany) Of a branch, leaf, etc.: outspread; also, spreading at right angles to the axis.
Synonyms
overt express monosemous unambiguous clear direct explicit monosemic plain specific unequivocal univocal apparent arrant undoubted glaring bait blatant clear as a bell clear as day patent of invention letters patent evident manifest unmistakable
Etymology
The noun is derived from Middle English patent (“document granting an office, property, right, title, etc.; document granting permission, licence; papal indulgence, pardon”) [and other forms], which is either:
* a clipping of lettre patent, lettres patente, lettres patentes [and other forms]; or
* directly from Anglo-Norman and Middle French patente (modern French patent), a clipping of Anglo-Norman lettres patentes, Middle French lettres patentes, lettre patente, and Old French patentes lettres (“document granting an office, privilege, right, etc., or making a decree”) (compare Late Latin patēns, littera patēns, litterae patentēs).
For the derivation of Anglo-Norman and Middle French patente (adjective) in lettre patente, see etymology 2 below.
The verb is derived from the noun.
From Middle English patent, patente (“wide open; clear, unobstructed; unlimited; of a document: available for public inspection”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman and Middle French patent (modern French patent), and directly from their etymon Latin patēns (“open; accessible, passable; evident, manifest; exposed, vulnerable”), the present active participle of pateō (“to be open; to be accessible, attainable; to be exposed, vulnerable; of frontiers or land: to extent, increase”), from Proto-Indo-European *peth₂- (“to spread out; to fly”).
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Open; expanded; evident; apparent; unconcealed; manifest; public; conspicuous.
- adjective Open to public perusal; --said of a document conferring some right or privilege; as, letters patent. See Letters patent, under 3d Letter.
- noun A letter patent, or letters patent; an official document, issued by a sovereign power, conferring a right or privilege on some person or party. Specifically: (a) A writing securing to an invention.
- noun The right or privilege conferred by such a document; hence, figuratively, a right, privilege, or license of the nature of a patent.
Etymology [L. patens, -entis, p.pr. of patere to be open: cf. F. patent. Cf. Fathom.]
Etymology [Cf. F. patente. See Patent, a.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “patent”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details