atomic

See also: atòmic

English

Etymology

atom + -ic

Pronunciation

  • (General Australian) enPR: əˈtŏm.ĭk, IPA(key): /əˈtɔm.ɪk/
  • (Received Pronunciation) enPR: əˈtŏm.ĭk, IPA(key): /əˈtɒm.ɪk/
  • (General American) enPR: əˈtä.mĭk, IPA(key): /əˈtɑː.mɪk/
  • (file)
  • Rhymes: -ɒmɪk

Adjective

atomic (not comparable)

  1. (physics, chemistry) Of or relating to atoms; composed of atoms; monatomic.
    Antonym: molecular
    A stream of atomic hydrogen is emitted.
  2. Employing or relating to nuclear energy or processes.
    We built a small atomic bomb in the garage.
    • 1955, David J. Dallin, Soviet Espionage (page 495)
      Before the atomic spy Allan Nunn May left Canada to go to London, a treff in London had to be arranged for him and another agent.
  3. Infinitesimally small.
    The hairs on a bedbug are almost atomic.
  4. Unable to be split or made any smaller.
    A bit is an atomic item of data.
    1. (programming, of a commit in a VCS) Containing a single change, as opposed to involving numerous unrelated changes.
    2. (logic, of a proposition) Lacking logical operators; unable to be made simpler in logical form.
  5. (computing, of an operation) Guaranteed to complete either fully or not at all while waiting in a pause, and running synchronously when called by multiple asynchronous threads.
    In order to avoid race conditions, this operation has to be atomic.
    Whenever possible, use atomic types instead of mutexes.
    • 2006, Tim Peierls; Brian Goetz; Joshua Bloch; Joseph Bowbeer; Doug Lea, Java Concurrency in Practice, Pearson Education, →ISBN, page 325:
      It also provides an atomic compareAndSet method (which if successful has the memory effects of both reading and writing a volatile variable) and, for convenience, atomic add, increment, and decrement methods.

Derived terms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Noun

atomic (plural atomics)

  1. (computing) An atomic operation.

Anagrams


Occitan

Pronunciation

  • (file)

Adjective

atomic m (feminine singular atomica, masculine plural atomics, feminine plural atomicas)

  1. atomic

Romanian

Etymology

From French atomique.

Adjective

atomic m or n (feminine singular atomică, masculine plural atomici, feminine and neuter plural atomice)

  1. atomic

Declension

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.