Wildcard

Quick meaning: Wildcard is a noun meaning (computing) A character that takes the place of any other character or string that is not known or specified.

Meaning

(computing) A character that takes the place of any other character or string that is not known or specified.

More Meanings

1. (also written wild card) An uncontrolled or unpredictable element.
2. (also written wild card) An element, often deliberately concealed, which is withheld for contingency.
3. (sports, card games) Alternative form of wild card.
4. (computing) To replace or supplement with a wildcard character to allow matching against a range of possible values.
5. (phonetics, phonology) 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

If the character * is acting as a wildcard, then the pattern a*m matches each of the words amalgam, atom and alum.

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.

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, […]

Word Forms

• wildcards
• wildcarding
• wildcarded

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include substitution, substitute, surrogate, generic, reverse, inverse.

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