wildcard
/wˈaɪldkˌɑɹd/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.17 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A character that takes the place of any other character or string that is not known or specified.
noun
An uncontrolled or unpredictable element.
noun
An element, often deliberately concealed, which is withheld for contingency.
noun
Alternative form of wild card.
noun
A letter or symbol that substitutes for a generic or poorly identified sound, for example capital C for any or some consonant, or capital V for any or some vowel.
Example Sentences
- "1968, Digital Equipment Corporation, VAX/VMS 319(5864), page 751, Section 2.1.2 Using Wildcard Characters A wildcard character is a symbol that you can use with many DCL commands to apply the command to several files at once, rather than specifying each file individually."
- "If the character * is acting as a wildcard, then the pattern a*m matches each of the words amalgam, atom and alum."
- "There are several technical wildcards, such as how the larger battery packs--four times larger than those of the Prius--will withstand the rigors of city driving, […]"
- "German wildcard Sabine Lisicki conquered her nerves to defeat France's Marion Bartoli and take her amazing Wimbledon run into the semi-finals."
- "The unfortunate consequence is that document elements cannot be wildcarded because a schema needs to provide a closed list of possible document elements."