What's a word for a batch of batches?
I have a program that does a job on batches of 100 items. It's too slow on its own, so I'm going to write a program that runs multiple copies of that program, giving each one a batch of 500 batches, so 50000 items in each batch-of-batches.
I'd like a single word for the batches of batches. I'm not looking for just any old synonym of "batch", but for a word which includes the sense of being batched at a higher level - though if such a word doesn't exist for "batch" and does exist for a synonym, I'd be happy with the pair.
Although the question doesn’t make it clear whether the poster wishes a name to use in his code (which would be off-topic, and depend on the names already taken for data structures in the programming language) or to use in user instructions or documentation, I will make a linguistic suggestion based on a precedent where there is a vowel change.
If Bytes are lots of Bits, then:
A Bitch might be a suitable word for lots of Batches
(Or unsuitable, but that’s life, as they say.)
This would also have the advantage of allowing a further level of complexity by another vowel change:
A Butch could be used for lots of Bitches
Footnote
“Lots of” may be regarded by non-informaticians as poor style, but in programming almost every word you can think of for a collection of objects (that too) already has a specific meaning. However this suggests an alternative approach, using the simple vernacular, rather than Latin or Greek, to form a prefix:
lota might be a suitable general-purpose prefix, e.g. a lota-batch
And then:
for a further level of complexity one could use wota, e.g. a wota-lota-batch
However an internet search suggests that in some parts of the world there might be cultural resistance to lota.
I'd suggest set.
It's a universal word for any grouping of similar items.
Each set contains 500 batches.
Or even batch-set.