Noun | 1. | chain - a series of things depending on each other as if linked together; "the chain of command"; "a complicated concatenation of circumstances" Synonyms: concatenation |
2. | chain - (chemistry) a series of linked atoms (generally in an organic molecule) Synonyms: chemical chain | |
3. | chain - a series of (usually metal) rings or links fitted into one another to make a flexible ligament | |
4. | chain - a number of similar establishments (stores or restaurants or banks or hotels or theaters) under one ownership | |
5. | chain - anything that acts as a restraint | |
6. | chain - a unit of length | |
7. | Chain - British biochemist (born in Germany) who isolated and purified penicillin, which had been discovered in 1928 by Sir Alexander Fleming (1906-1979) Synonyms: Ernst Boris Chain, Sir Ernst Boris Chain | |
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9. | chain - metal shackles; for hands or legs | |
10. | chain - a necklace made by a stringing objects together; "a string of beads"; "a strand of pearls"; | |
Verb | 1. | chain - connect or arrange into a chain by linking |
2. | chain - fasten or secure with chains; "Chain the chairs together" Antonyms: unchain - remove the chains from |
1. | (operating system) | chain - (From BASIC's "CHAIN" statement) To
pass control to a child or successor without going through the
operating system command interpreter that invoked you.
The state of the parent program is lost and there is no
returning to it. Though this facility used to be common on
memory-limited microcomputers and is still widely supported
for backward compatibility, the jargon usage is
semi-obsolescent; in particular, Unix calls this exec. Compare with the more modern "subshell". | |
2. | (programming) | chain - A series of linked data areas within an operating system or application program. "Chain rattling" is the process of repeatedly running through the linked data areas searching for one which is of interest. The implication is that there are many links in the chain. | |
3. | (theory) | chain - A possibly infinite, non-decreasing sequence of
elements of some total ordering, S x0 <= x1 <= x2 ... A chain satisfies: for all x,y in S, x <= y \/ y <= x. I.e. any two elements of a chain are related. ("<=" is written in LaTeX as \sqsubseteq). |