module

Noun

1. A self-contained component of a system, often interchangeable, which has a well-defined interface to the other components.
   • A friend who’s spent decades as an auto mechanic recently confided that he’s grateful to be nearing retirement. “These Teslas,” he told me, “they’re not even cars anymore – they’re computers on wheels. When something...
2. A standard unit of measure used for determining the proportions of a building.
3. A section of a program; a subroutine or group of subroutines.
   • Class modules are similar to form modules except they do not have a visible interface (GUI). - 2001, Phil Jones, Visual Basic: A Complete Course, page 254:
   • When there is more than one protected module in memory, the rules for accessing the code and data sections of a given module treat all the other modules as if they were unprotected memory. - 2013, Helmut Reimer, Norbert...
4. A unit of education covering a single topic.
   • Which modules are you studying next year?
5. A pre-prepared adventure scenario with related materials for a role-playing game.
   • Dragonborn […] first appeared in the Dragons of Despair module (1984) for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons as “dragonmen.” - 2011, Michael J. Tresca, The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games, page 81:
6. An abelian group equipped with the operation of multiplication by an element of a ring (or another of certain algebraic objects), representing a generalisation of the concept of vector space with scalar multiplication.
   • Modules over a ring are a generalization of abelian groups (which are modules over #92;textstyle#92;mathbb#123;Z#125;). - 1974, Thomas W. Hungerford, Algebra, Springer, page 168:
   • Approximately forty-five years ago K. Morita presented the first major results on equivalences and dualities between categories of modules over a pair of rings. - 2004, Robert R. Colby, Kent R. Fuller, Equivalence and...
   • One defines in like manner right K-modules and two-sided K-modules. If K is commutative, then every left K-module is automatically equipped with the structure of right and a two-sided K-module. - 2012, A. A. Kirillov,...

   Meronyms: element

7. A fractal element.
8. A file containing a music sequence that can be played in a tracker.
   • I composed a number of techno and rave modules back in the 1990s.

   Synonyms: mod

9. A contrivance for regulating the supply of water from an irrigation channel.
10. An independent self-contained unit of a spacecraft.