pack

• IPA^(key): /pæk/, [pʰæk]
• Rhymes: -æk

From Middle English pak, pakke, from Old English *pæcca and/or Middle Dutch pak, packe; both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *pakkô (“bundle, pack”). Cognate with Dutch pak (“pack”), Low German Pack (“pack”), German Pack (“pack”), Swedish packe (“pack”), Icelandic pakka, pakki (“package”).

pack (plural packs)

1. A bundle made up and prepared to be carried; especially, a bundle to be carried on the back, but also a load for an animal, a bale

   The horses carried the packs across the plain.

2. A number or quantity equal to the contents of a pack
3. a multitude.

   a pack of lies

   a pack of complaints

4. A number or quantity of connected or similar things; a collective.
5. A full set of playing cards; also, the assortment used in a particular game

   We were going to play cards, but nobody brought a pack.

6. A number of hounds or dogs, hunting or kept together.
   • 2005, John D. Skinner and Christian T. Chimimba, The Mammals of the Southern African Subregion‎

     African wild dogs hunt by sight, although stragglers use their noses to follow the pack.

7. A wolfpack: a number of wolves, hunting together.
8. A number of persons associated or leagued in a bad design or practice; a gang.

   a pack of thieves or knaves

9. A group of Cub Scouts.
10. A shook of cask staves.
11. A bundle of sheet-iron plates for rolling simultaneously.
12. A large area of floating pieces of ice driven together more or less closely.

    The ship had to sail round the pack of ice.

13. (medicine) An envelope, or wrapping, of sheets used in hydropathic practice, called dry pack, wet pack, cold pack, etc., according to the method of treatment.
14. (slang): A loose, lewd, or worthless person.
15. (snooker, pool) A tight group of object balls in cue sports. Usually the reds in snooker.
16. (rugby) The team on the field.

(full set of cards): deck

From Middle English pakken, from the noun (see above). Compare Middle Dutch packen (“to pack”), Middle Low German packen (“to pack”).

pack (third-person singular simple present packs, present participle packing, simple past and past participle packed)

1. (physical) To put or bring things together in a limited or confined space, especially for storage or transport.
   1. (transitive) To make a pack of; to arrange closely and securely in a pack; hence, to place and arrange compactly as in a pack; to press into close order or narrow compass.

      to pack goods in a box;  to pack fish

      • (Can we date this quote?) Joseph Addison

        strange materials packed up with wonderful art

      • c. 1591–1595, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act IV, scene iii]:

        Where, for these many hundred years, the bones
        Of all my buried ancestors are packed

   2. (transitive) To fill in the manner of a pack, that is, compactly and securely, as for transportation; hence, to fill closely or to repletion; to stow away within; to cause to be full; to crowd into.

      to pack a trunk;  the play, or the audience, packs the theater

      • 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 5, in Death on the Centre Court:

        By one o'clock the place was choc-a-bloc. […] The restaurant was packed, and the promenade between the two main courts and the subsidiary courts was thronged with healthy-looking youngish people, drawn to the Mecca of tennis from all parts of the country.

   3. (transitive) To envelop in a wet or dry sheet, within numerous coverings.

      The doctor gave Kelly some sulfa pills and packed his arm in hot-water bags.

   4. (transitive) To render impervious, as by filling or surrounding with suitable material, or to fit or adjust so as to move without giving passage to air, water, or steam.

      to pack a joint;  to pack the piston of a steam engine;  pack someone's arm with ice.

   5. (intransitive) To make up packs, bales, or bundles; to stow articles securely for transportation.
   6. (intransitive) To admit of stowage, or of making up for transportation or storage; to become compressed or to settle together, so as to form a compact mass.

      the goods pack conveniently;  wet snow packs well

   7. (intransitive) To gather in flocks or schools.

      the grouse or the perch begin to pack

   8. (transitive, historical) To combine (telegraph messages) in order to send them more cheaply as a single transmission.
2. (social) To cheat, to arrange matters unfairly.
   1. (transitive, card games) To sort and arrange (the cards) in a pack so as to secure the game unfairly.
      • (Can we date this quote?) Alexander Pope

        Mighty dukes pack cards for half a crown.

   2. (transitive) To bring together or make up unfairly and fraudulently, in order to secure a certain result.

      to pack a jury

      • (Can we date this quote?) Francis Atterbury

        The expected council was dwindling into […] a packed assembly of Italian bishops.

   3. (transitive) To contrive unfairly or fraudulently; to plot.
      • (Can we date this quote?) Thomas Fuller

        He lost life […] upon a nice point subtilely devised and packed by his enemies.

   4. (intransitive) To unite in bad measures; to confederate for ill purposes; to join in collusion.
      • 1599, William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Act 5 Scene 1

        This naughty man / Shall face to face be brought to Margaret, / Who, I believe, was pack'd in all this wrong, / Hired to it by your brother.

3. (transitive) To load with a pack; hence, to load; to encumber.

   to pack a horse

   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     our thighs packed with wax, our mouths with honey

4. To move, send or carry.
   1. (transitive) To cause to go; to send away with baggage or belongings; especially, to send away peremptorily or suddenly; – sometimes with off. See pack off.

      to pack a boy off to school

      • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

        Till George be packed with post horse up to heaven.

   2. (transitive, US, Western US) To transport in a pack, or in the manner of a pack (i. e., on the backs of men or animals).
   3. (intransitive) To depart in haste; – generally with off or away.
      • (Can we date this quote?) Jonathan Swift

        Poor Stella must pack off to town.

      • (Can we date this quote?) Alfred Tennyson

        You shall pack, / And never more darken my doors again.

   4. (transitive, slang) To carry weapons, especially firearms, on one's person.
5. (transitive, sports, slang) To block a shot, especially in basketball.
6. (intransitive, LGBT slang, of a drag king, transman, etc.) To wear a prosthetic penis inside one’s trousers for better verisimilitude.

• (To sort and arrange (the cards) in a pack so as to secure the game unfairly): stack

• (make into a pack): unpack

• IPA^(key): /pak/

pack m (plural packs)

1. pack (item of packaging)
2. pack ice
3. (sports) A rugby team

pack

1. Alternative form of pak

From English pack.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpak/

pack m (plural packs)

1. pack, package
2. kit, set, bundle

pack n

1. a group of unwanted people, lower class people, trash
2. stuff, things, luggage; only in the expression pick och pack

• packa
• paket