chain

To hand off execution to a child or successor without going through the OS
command interpreter that invoked it. The state of the parent program is lost
and there is no returning to it. Though this facility used to be common on
memory-limited micros and is still widely supported for backward
compatibility, the jargon usage is semi-obsolescent; in particular, most
Unix programmers will think of this as an exec. Oppose the more modern
subshell. 2. n. A series of linked data areas within an operating system or
application. Chain rattling is the process of repeatedly running through the
linked data areas searching for one which is of interest to the executing
program. The implication is that there is a very large number of links on
the chain.

