wildcard noun 4verb 1forms 3 noun4 •An uncontrolled or unpredictable element.There are several technical wildcards, such as how the larger battery packs--four times larger than those of the Prius--will withstand the rigors of city driving, […] — 2008 •A character that takes the place of any other character or string that is not known or specified.If the character * is acting as a wildcard, then the pattern a*m matches each of the words amalgam, atom and alum. •A letter or symbol that substitutes for a generic or poorly identified sound, for example capital C for any or some consonant, or capital V for any or some vowel. •An element, often deliberately concealed, which is withheld for contingency. verb1 •To replace or supplement with a wildcard character to allow matching against a range of possible values.The unfortunate consequence is that document elements cannot be wildcarded because a schema needs to provide a closed list of possible document elements. — 2002 formswildcarded · wildcarding · wildcards
