wildcard
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wildcard
Where it comes from
From wild + card.
noun wildcards
- A character that takes the place of any other character or string that is not known or specified. 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.
- An uncontrolled or unpredictable element. 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, […]
- An element, often deliberately concealed, which is withheld for contingency.
- Alternative form of wild card German wildcard Sabine Lisicki conquered her nerves to defeat France's Marion Bartoli and take her amazing Wimbledon run into the semi-finals.
- 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.
verb wildcards · wildcarding · wildcarded
- To replace or supplement with a wildcard character to allow matching against a range of possible values. The unfortunate consequence is that document elements cannot be wildcarded because a schema needs to provide a closed list of possible document elements.
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: substitution, substitute, surrogate, generic, reverse, inverse, alternative, catch-all, placeholder, wild-card, wildcat, j. random, character, randomer, joker, wildcatter
Translations
Every language
noun uncontrolled or unpredictable element
| 中文 | 未知数 wèizhīshù |
|---|---|
| Français | électron libre |
| Ελληνικά | μπαλαντέρ balantér |
noun special character
| Español | comodín |
|---|---|
| 한국어 | 와일드카드 waildeukadeu |
| 日本語 | ワイルドカード wairudokādo |
| 中文 | 通配符 tōngpèifú |
| Português | coringa, curinga |
| Français | joker |
| Deutsch | Platzhalter |
| Ελληνικά | χαρακτήρας μπαλαντέρ charaktíras balantér |
| Română | joker, wildcard |
| Русский | знак подстано́вки znak podstanóvki, шабло́н šablón, си́мвол-джо́кер símvol-džóker |
Talk about this word "wildcard." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/wildcard. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. wildcard. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/wildcard "wildcard." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/wildcard.Cite this
@misc{wildcard_2026,
title = {wildcard},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/wildcard},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}