patent🔊

(law) An official document granting an appointment, privilege, or right, or some property or title; letters patent.

(law, specifically, originally) A grant of a monopoly over the manufacture, sale, and use of goods.

(law, specifically) 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.

(law, US, historical) A specific grant of ownership of a piece of real property.

(by extension) A product in respect of which a patent has been obtained.

A varnished, high-gloss leather typically used for accessories and shoes.

(figuratively) A license or (formal) permission to do something.

(figuratively) A characteristic or quality that one possesses; in particular (hyperbolic) as if exclusively; a monopoly.

(gambling) The combination of seven bets on three selections, offering a return even if only one bet comes in.

(law) 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.

(law, US, historical) To obtain (over a piece of real property) a specific grant of ownership.

(figuratively) To be closely associated or identified with (something); to monopolize.

Conspicuous; open; unconcealed.

(baking) Of flour: fine, and consisting mostly of the inner part of the endosperm of the grain from which it is milled.

(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.

(medicine, veterinary medicine) Of an infection: in the phase when the organism causing it can be detected by clinical tests.

Explicit and obvious. +

(archaic) Especially of a document conferring some privilege or right: open to public perusal or use.

(archaic) Appointed or conferred by letters patent.

(botany) Of a branch, leaf, etc.: outspread; also, spreading at right angles to the axis.

(law) Protected by a legal patent.

(by extension, figuratively) To which someone has, or seems to have, a claim or an exclusive claim; also, inventive or particularly suited for.