Definition of padding Padding

/pæˈdɪŋ/ - [patding] - pad•ding

We found 12 definitions of padding from 5 different sources.

What does padding mean?

Noun Plural: paddings
padding - artifact consisting of soft or resilient material used to fill or give shape or protect or add comfort
		cushioning
		artefact, artifact a man-made object taken as a whole
		cushion a soft bag filled with air or a mass of padding such as feathers or foam rubber etc.
		falsie padding that is worn inside a brassiere
		pad the fleshy cushion-like underside of an animal's foot or of a human's finger
		stuffing padding put in mattresses and cushions and upholstered furniture
		cotton fiber, cotton wool, cotton fabric woven from cotton fibers
		silk cotton, vegetable silk, kapok massive tropical tree with deep ridges on its massive trunk and bearing large pods of seeds covered with silky floss; source of the silky kapok fiber

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padding (Noun)
Soft filling material used in cushions etc.
padding (Noun)
Extra characters such as spaces added to the end of a record to fill it out to a fixed length.
padding (Noun)
Extraneous text added to a message for the purpose of concealing its beginning, ending, or lengthJoint Publication 1-02 U. S. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms; 12 April 2001 As Amended Through 14 April 2006. .
padding (Verb)
Present participle of pad.

padding (p. pr. & vb. n.)
of Pad
padding (n.)
The act or process of making a pad or of inserting stuffing.
padding (n.)
The material with which anything is padded.
padding (n.)
Material of inferior value, serving to extend a book, essay, etc.
padding (n.)
The uniform impregnation of cloth with a mordant.

cryptography
Padding is a term used in cryptography. Very often, messages (to be encrypted) start or end in a well-known way ("Dear Bob..., Yours, Alice"). This is a problem, because that knowledge could be used to break (or start to break) encryption. To prevent this, a number of random characters are added at the beginning or the end of the message.

This procedure may also be necessary because many cryptographic methods operate on blocks of code. If a block is not full, additional characters need to be filled in. Filling in random text has proven very useful.