module

Noun

module (plural modules)

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 goes wrong, you don’t fix it; you just replace entire modules.” What was once a...2025 February 11, Joshua Stylman, “How to Forge the Spectator Class”, in Brownstone Journal
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 Pohlmann, Wolfgang Schneider, ISSE 2013 Securing Electronic Business Processes, page 244
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. (ring theory) 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 Duality for Module Categories (with Tilting and Cotilting for Rings), Cambridge University Press, page vii
7. (fractal geometry) 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.