packet

Etymology

From Middle English pacquet; either from Middle French pacquet, or formed independently from pak and -et.

noun

1. A small pack or package; a little bundle or parcel
   Don't throw the crisp packet on the floor!
   a packet of letters
   a packet of biscuits
   (archaic) a travel bag containing clothing, nightwear and other accessories.
2. (nautical) Originally, a vessel employed by government to convey dispatches or mails; hence, a vessel employed in conveying dispatches, mails, passengers, and goods, and having fixed days of sailing; a mail boat. Packet boat, ship, vessel (Wikipedia).
   Fishguard Harbour, constructed some 60 years ago by the G.W.R., became the packet port for G.W.R. services to Waterford and Rosslare - the latter port itself was a new venture partly under G.W.R. auspices - and to Cork. 1961 August, “New traffic flows in South Wales”, in Trains Illustrated, page 492
3. (botany) A specimen envelope containing small, dried plants or containing parts of plants when attached to a larger sheet.
4. (networking) A small fragment of data as transmitted on some types of network, notably Ethernet networks (Wikipedia).
5. (South Africa) A plastic bag.
   2012 August 6, Wendy Knowler, Plastic packets: who bags the profits?
6. (slang) Synonym of package (“male genitalia”).
   A sleeping, silver-haired man, probably about fifty, couldn’t close his legs because of the size of his packet. 2020, Paul Mendez, Rainbow Milk, Dialogue Books (2021), page 157
7. (informal) A large amount of money.
   It'll cost a packet to fix this.

verb

1. (transitive) To make up into a packet or bundle.
2. (transitive) To send in a packet or dispatch vessel.
3. (intransitive) To ply with a packet or dispatch boat.
4. (transitive, Internet) To subject to a denial-of-service attack in which a large number of data packets are sent.
   2007, Committee on Improving Cybersecurity Research in the United States, Toward a Safer and More Secure Cyberspace Typically, one hacker will annoy another; the offended party replies by launching a denial-of-service attack against the offender. These attacks—known as packeting—tend to be of limited duration […]