pod

plural pods

1. A self-contained unit, container, or enclosure that holds, protects, or transports something.
   1. biologyA seed case for legumes (e.g. peas, beans, peppers); a seedpod.

      Synonyms: capsule, case, container, hull, husk, shell, seedpod, vessel

   2. A very small room or space for one person to inhabit, as in a capsule hotel.
   3. A small vehicle, especially used in emergency situations; see escape pod.

      Near-synonym: escape pod

      1 more example

      cart, that is clouted and shod, cart ladder and wimble, with perser and pod

      1557 February 13 (Gregorian calendar), Thomas Tusser, A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie, London: […] Richard Tottel, →OCLC; republished London: […] Robert Triphook, […], and William Sancho, […], 1810, →OCLC

      Synonyms: escape pod

   4. A nicotine cartridge.
   5. UKdialectalobsoleteA bag; a pouch.
2. A small, self-contained unit within a larger system.
   1. A small section of a larger office, compartmentalised for a specific purpose.
   2. A subsection of a prison, containing a number of inmates.
3. A group or collective.
   1. collectivebiologyA group of whales, dolphins, seals, porpoises or hippopotami.

      Thar she blows! I point to a pod of beluga whales we encountered in Cunningham Inlet off Somerset Island during our third and final season.

      1989 May, Jeff MacInnis, “Braving the Northwest Passage”, in National Geographic, volume 175, number 5, page 594

      Synonyms: gam

   2. A group of people who regularly interact.
   3. broadcastingA set of commercials to be shown together.

      These matrilineal groups associate with related families, who are probably sister lineages, to form pods.

      2016, Joseph Henrich, chapter 8, in The Secret of Our Success […] , Princeton: Princeton University Press, →ISBN

      2 more examples

      These ads are shown during commercial breaks when there is no game action. Usually, multiple spots are grouped into a pod of commercials.

      2014, Lisa P. Masteralexis, Carol A. Barr, Mary Hums, Principles and Practice of Sport Management, page 448

      For many people forming pods last year, finding compatible people to group with was not a cost but a goal. Private companies that create educational software for pods report that people prefer to group with their friends in order to reduce the incentive to have social contacts outside of their pods.

      2021 October 1, Calder Katyal, “Schools Need to Undo the Damage of Pods”, in The Atlantic

   4. ball gamesA small group (usually 3 or 4) of forwards working together as a group in open play.
4. A lie-flat seat in business or first class.
5. A tapered, cylindrical body of ore or minerals.
   1. A straight channel or groove in the body of certain forms of, usually tapered, augers and boring-bits.
6. InternetabbreviationclippinginformalClipping of podcast.

   I'd started shopping at 2 a.m., and the pod I listened to while shopping was almost through, so had to be 3 damn near.

   2022, Sean Thor Conroe, Fuccboi, Hachette, →ISBN

7. abbreviationclippinginformalClipping of isopod.

present singular third person pods · participle present podding · participle past podded · past podded

1. intransitiveTo bear or produce pods

   In the herbaceous border many flowers had seeded and podded; spears of them, brown, now rose up behind the mauve blur of the michaelmas daisies.

   2012, Deborah Moggach, You Must Be Sisters, →ISBN, page 219

   2 more examples

   Wherefore it was, that many ignorant Mardians, who had not pushed their investigations into the science of physiology, sagely divined, that the Tapparians must have podded into life like peas, instead of being otherwise indebted for their existence.

   1849, Herman Melville, Mardi, and a Voyage Thither

   David looked seawards along the river. He stared, rubbed his eyes, and stared again. One of the rocks seemed to have podded into something swollen, black and smooth.

   1939, Leonard Alfred George Strong, The Open Sky, page 64

2. transitiveTo remove peas from their case.
3. intransitivetransitiveTo put into a pod or to enter a pod.

   Thus the torpedoes will have to be stored internally or be podded into streamline containers.

   1955, Military Review - Volume 35, Issue 9, page 81

   5 more examples

   Lycoming is working on a twin T53 or T55 turboprop installation whereby two engines would be podded together to drive a single propeller.

   1957, Aviation Week - Volume 66, page 23

   One, called An- 12BZ-2, was a single-point hose-and- drogue tanker similar to the RAF's Lockheed C-130K Hercules C.1K, except that the hose drum unit was podded, not built in.

   2004, Yefim Gordon, Dmitriy Komissarov, Antonov An-12 Cub, page 90

   This was to be achieved by increasing the number of Lotarev D-18T engines to 8 by podding the inboard pylons on each side to take two engines (see Fig. 7).

   2006, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society - Volume 59, page 130

   In June 2009, the company opened another facility in Tianjin to provide nacelle and thrust-reverser MRO services and to support engine buildup and podding work for the new Airbus A320 assembly line in the same city.

   2011, Roger Cliff, Chad J. R. Ohlandt, David Yang, Ready for Takeoff: China's Advancing Aerospace Industry, →ISBN

   Then i was podded by a buddie of mine, working the burrough next to mine, all humans had a blue rabbit glow around them and seemed to sleep walk out of the burrough out in to a field while a sound like; ta-ta-dah-taaa, soundeḍ ̣̪continously [sic], where they waited while looking up in the sky.

   2012, Gabriel Blue Melchizedek, The Alienvirus, →ISBN

4. intransitiveTo swell or fill.

plural PODs

1. abbreviationinitialismuncountablemediaInitialism of print on demand.
2. abbreviationcountableinitialismuncountablelogisticsInitialism of proof of delivery.
3. abbreviationinitialismuncountablecomputingInitialism of plain old data.
4. abbreviationcountableinitialismuncountableInitialism of point of divergence.
5. abbreviationcountableinitialismuncountableInitialism of place of death.

   Vickers et al. found that at entry to the study, that is, when it was thought that cure was no longer possible, 98 (68%) of 164 families recorded a preference for home as POD.

   2013, Myra Bluebond-Langner, Emma Beecham, Bridget Candy, Richard Langner, Louise Jones, “Preferred place of death for children and young people with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions […] ”, in Palliative Medicine, volume 27, number 8, SAGE Publications, →DOI, page 708