Noun

A particular method for performing a task.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2014-06-14, volume=411, issue=8891, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= It's a gas , passage=One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains. Isolating a city’s effluent and shipping it away in underground sewers has probably saved more lives than any medical procedure except vaccination.}}

A series of small tasks or steps taken to accomplish an end.

(label) The set of established forms or methods of an organized body for accomplishing a certain task or tasks.

The steps taken in an action or other legal proceeding.

* (Isaac Taylor) (1787–1865)

Gracious procedures .

(label) That which results; issue; product.

(Bacon)

(label) A subroutine or function coded to perform a specific task.

(label) A surgical operation.

Noun

(en noun)

Model, example.

# Something from which a copy is made; a model or outline.

#* 1923 , ‘President Wilson’, Time , 18 Jun 1923:

There is no reason why all colleges and universities should be cut to the same pattern .

# Someone or something seen as an example to be imitated; an exemplar.

#* 1946 , Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy , I.16:

The Platonic Socrates was a pattern to subsequent philosophers for many ages.

#

#

# A representative example.

# (US) The material needed to make a piece of clothing.

# (textiles) The paper or cardboard template from which the parts of a garment are traced onto fabric prior to cutting out and assembling.

# (metalworking, dated) A full-sized model around which a mould 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 mould without damage.

# (computing) A text string containing wildcards, used for matching.

There were no files matching the pattern *.txt.

Decorative arrangement.

# A design, motif or decoration, especially formed from regular repeated elements.

#* 2003 , Valentino, ‘Is there a future in fashion's past?’, Time , 5 Feb 2003:

On my way to work the other day, I stopped at a church in Rome and saw a painting of the Madonna. The subtle pattern of blues and golds in the embroidery of her dress was so amazing that I used it to design a new evening dress for my haute couture.

# A naturally-occurring or random arrangement of shapes, colours etc. which have a regular or decorative effect.

#* 2011 , Rachel Cooke, The Observer , 19 Jun 2011:

He lifted the entire joint or fowl up into the air, speared on a carving fork, and sliced pieces off it so that they fell on the plate below in perfectly organised patterns .

# The given spread, range etc. of shot fired from a gun.

# A particular sequence of events, facts etc. which can be understood, used to predict the future, or seen to have a mathematical, geometric, statistical etc. relationship.

#* 1980 , ‘Shifting Targets’, Time , 6 Oct 1980:

The three killings pointed to an ugly new shift in the enduring pattern of violence in Northern Ireland: the mostly Protestant Ulster police, or those suspected of affiliation with them, have become more prominent targets for the I.R.A. than the British troops.

#* 2003 , Kate Hudson, The Guardian , 14 Aug 2003:

Look again at how the US and its allies behaved then, and the pattern is unmistakable.

# (linguistics) An intelligible arrangement in a given area of language.