1 a number of people or things that are dealt with as a group:
Each summer a new batch of students tries to find work. * He worked his way through the batch of letters on his desk. * We deliver the goods in batches.
2 an amount of food, medicine, etc. produced at one time:
a batch of cookies * loaves of bread baked in batches of 20 * It is necessary to make new batches of flu vaccine whenever a different, virulent strain of flu makes an appearance.
3 (computing) a set of jobs that are processed together on a computer:
to process a batch job * a batch file / program
verb to put things into groups in order to deal with them: [VN] The service will be improved by batching and sorting enquiries. [also V]
