Protocol

noun
1.
the customs and regulations dealing with diplomatic formality, precedence, and etiquette.
2.
an original draft, minute, or record from which a document, especially a treaty, is prepared.
3.
a supplementary international agreement.
4.
an agreement between states.
5.
an annex to a treaty giving data relating to it.
6.
Medicine/Medical. the plan for carrying out a scientific study or a patient’s treatment regimen.
7.
Computers. a set of rules governing the format of messages that are exchanged between computers.
8.
Also called protocol statement, protocol sentence, protocol proposition. Philosophy. a statement reporting an observation or experience in the most fundamental terms without interpretation: sometimes taken as the basis of empirical verification, as of scientific laws.
verb (used without object)
9.
to draft or issue a protocol.
noun
1.
the formal etiquette and code of behaviour, precedence, and procedure for state and diplomatic ceremonies
2.
a memorandum or record of an agreement, esp one reached in international negotiations, a meeting, etc
3.
(chiefly US)

a record of data or observations on a particular experiment or proceeding
an annexe appended to a treaty to deal with subsidiary matters or to render the treaty more lucid
a formal international agreement or understanding on some matter

4.
an amendment to a treaty or convention
5.
(philosophy) a statement that is immediately verifiable by experience In full protocol statement See logical positivism
6.
(computing) the set form in which data must be presented for handling by a particular computer configuration, esp in the transmission of information between different computer systems

protocol pro·to·col (prō’tə-kôl’, -kōl’)
n.
The plan for a course of medical treatment or for a scientific experiment.
protocol
(prō’tə-kôl’, -kōl’)

The plan for a course of medical treatment or for a scientific experiment.

A set of standardized procedures for transmitting or storing data, especially those used in regulating data transmission between computers or peripherals.

A set of formal rules describing how to transmit data, especially across a network. Low level protocols define the electrical and physical standards to be observed, bit- and byte-ordering and the transmission and error detection and correction of the bit stream. High level protocols deal with the data formatting, including the syntax of messages, the terminal to computer dialogue, character sets, sequencing of messages etc.
Many protocols are defined by RFCs or by OSI.
See also handshaking.
[Jargon File]
(1995-01-12)