british-englishmeaningnounsprogrammingsingle-word-requests
If I understand it correctly, one usually uses the term enclosure when referring to extra documents to e.g. a letter. But what if these extra items are not other documents and papers?
Say I have written a report discussing some of my developed software. It could be a school paper, and the paper and the files in union make up the final product handed in.
What is the right term for the software files belonging to this report? The dictionary definition of the words above don't quite seem to fit.
To reiterate what you described, in strict usage the following apply:
This is a pentagram – a type of five-pointed star
This is a pentacle – a pentagram circumscribed by a circle:
This is a five-pointed star that is not a pentagram:
Yes, as you described, strict usage is not always the case, and when you say pentagram it evokes pentacle in the minds of many people. However, I am convinced that there is no single word that is both common and unambiguously understood to mean the first case. I am assuming that since you consider five-pointed star "a bit of a mouthful" that you mean to repeat this term at least a few times in whatever you're writing. If I were in your place, I would use the term pentagram (since after all, it is correct in formal usage), and use a picture to show the reader exactly what you mean. If you are writing in a medium where you cannot use pictures, I would spend a sentence to describe it as a five-pointed star drawn with five straight strokes.
"Attachmentless."
Or, you could simply say "E-mail without the intended attachment." There's not exactly a thing for which we've needed an English word.
Best Answer
The major difference between attachments and enclosures in traditional media is really as slight as a staple or other mechanism of close placement physically binding the two documents together, and the terms tell the reader of the main document where to find the mentioned additional article. Enclosed tells me to look in the envelope, where attachment tells me to expect it to be bound to the main document.
What you describe is probably best termed enclosure if you are handing in a package containing a disk or jump drive, or attachment if it is printed source code stapled to the document.