grid

noun, verb — 14 senses

grid

noun

/ɡɹɪd/

Etymology Back-formation or clipping of griddle or gridiron.

11 senses
  1. 1A rectangular array of squares or rectangles of equal…
  2. 2A tiling of the plane with regular polygons; a honeycomb.
  3. 3A system for delivery of electricity, consisting of…
  4. 4A system or structure of distributed computers working…
  5. 5A method of marking off maps into areas.
  6. 6The pattern of starting positions of the drivers for a race.
  7. 7The third (or higher) electrode of a vacuum tube (triode…
  8. 8A battery-plate somewhat like a grating, especially a…
  9. 9A grating of parallel bars; a gridiron.
  10. 10An openwork ceiling above the stage or studio, used for…
  11. 11A bicycle.
1

A rectangular array of squares or rectangles of equal size, such as in a crossword puzzle.

2

A tiling of the plane with regular polygons; a honeycomb.

3

A system for delivery of electricity, consisting of various substations, transformers and generators, connected by wire.

  • You can't turn off the building from here; you have to shut down the whole grid.1988, Die Hard (movie)
  • [Rural solar plant] schemes are of little help to industry or other heavy users of electricity. Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid. For all that, the rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long overdue. When the national grid suffers its next huge outage, as it did in July 2012 when hundreds of millions were left in the dark, look for specks of light in the villages.2013 July 20, “Out of the gloom”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:
4

Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences A system or structure of distributed computers working mostly on a peer-to-peer basis, used mainly to solve single and complex scientific or technical problems or to process data at high speeds (as in clusters).

5

Cartography, Geography, Natural sciences A method of marking off maps into areas.

6

Hobbies, Lifestyle, Motor racing, Racing, Sports The pattern of starting positions of the drivers for a race.

  • McLaren's Lewis Hamilton fought up from the back of the grid to eighth, with team-mate Jenson Button taking ninth.2012 May 13, Andrew Benson, “Williams's Pastor Maldonado takes landmark Spanish Grand Prix win”, in BBC Sport:
7

Business, Electrical engineering, Electricity, Electromagnetism, Electronics, Energy, Engineering, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Physics The third (or higher) electrode of a vacuum tube (triode or higher).

8

Business, Electrical engineering, Electricity, Electromagnetism, Energy, Engineering, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Physics A battery-plate somewhat like a grating, especially a zinc plate in a primary battery, or a lead plate in a secondary or storage battery.

9

A grating of parallel bars; a gridiron.

  • They camped that night at Dingo Creek, the fire Jim quickly made, Put the Billy on the cross-piece, pitched the tent, Brought a steak from 'neath the saddle-flap, and on the "grid" 'twas laid, A piece of rusty fencing wire, well bent.1897 October 10, The Truth, Sydney, page 8, column 3:
10

Broadcasting, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Media, Television, Theater An openwork ceiling above the stage or studio, used for affixing lights etc.

  • Everything on the grid – all the backdrops and curtains, anything that has to move up and down from the fly-tower – has to be counterweighted.2018, Maggie Harcourt, Theatrical:
11

Australia, New Zealand A bicycle.

  • ‘Hop on the bar of my grid,’ said D'Arcy. ‘I'll double you round to meet some pals of ours.’1963, Ronald Hugh Morrieson, The Scarecrow, Text Classics, published 2012, page 80:
Derived terms
55 termsball grid array, Cartesian grid, cattle grid, control grid, diagrid, dodecagrid, Dürer grid, electric grid, geogrid, gridable, grid butt, grid cell, gridder, griddler, griddy, grid electricity, grid girl, grid-in, gridiron, gridless, gridlike, gridline, grid-lined, gridlock, grid method, grid north, grid paper, grid plan, gridpoint, grid point, grid reference, grid road, grid square, gridwork, heptagrid, Hermann grid, icosagrid, isogrid, microgrid, minigrid, multigrid, off-grid, off the grid, off-the-grid, on the grid, orthogrid, pentagrid, power grid, progressive grid, regular grid, smart grid, starting grid, subgrid, supergrid, time-space grid
Related terms
grill, grille, lattice, rectangle, reticulum, square
Hyponyms
national grid, numerical grid, supergrid

grid

verb

Etymology Back-formation or clipping of griddle or gridiron.

1

To mark with a grid.

2

To assign a reference grid to.

3

Education To enter in a grid.

  • On the SAT, to answer a grid-in question, you grid in your answer by filling out the ovals.

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.