grid

A rectangular array of squares or rectangles of equal size, such as in a crossword puzzle.

A tiling of the plane with regular polygons; a honeycomb.

A system for delivery of electricity, consisting of various substations, transformers and generators, connected by wire.

• You can't turn off the building from here; you have to shut down the whole grid.

A system or structure of distributed computers working mostly on a peer-to-peer basis, used mainly to solve single and complex scientific or technical problems or to process data at high speeds (as in clusters).

A method of marking off maps into areas.

The pattern of starting positions of the drivers for a race.

• McLaren's Lewis Hamilton fought up from the back of the grid to eighth, with team-mate Jenson Button taking ninth.

The third (or higher) electrode of a vacuum tube (triode or higher).

A battery-plate somewhat like a grating, especially a zinc plate in a primary battery, or a lead plate in a secondary or storage battery.

A grating of parallel bars; a gridiron.

• They camped that night at Dingo Creek, the fire Jim quickly made, Put the Billy on the cross-piece, pitched the tent, Brought a steak from 'neath the saddle-flap, and on the "grid" 'twas laid, A piece of rusty fencing wire, well bent.

An openwork ceiling above the stage or studio, used for affixing lights etc.

• Everything on the grid – all the backdrops and curtains, anything that has to move up and down from the fly-tower – has to be counterweighted.

To mark with a grid.

To assign a reference grid to.

To enter in a grid.

• On the SAT, to answer a grid-in question, you grid in your answer by filling out the ovals.