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synchronous

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Late Latin synchronus, from Ancient Greek σύγχρονος (súnkhronos, “contemporaneous”), from σῠν- (sŭn-, “with, together”) + χρόνος (khrónos, “time”). By surface analysis, syn- +‎ chron- +‎ -ous = synchrony +‎ -ous; however, all related words (e.g., synchronic, synchrony, synchronicity, diachronous, diachronic, diachrony, diachronicity) were coined later, either as back-formations from, or otherwise by analogy with the surface analysis of, synchronous.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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synchronous (comparative more synchronous, superlative most synchronous)

  1. At the same time, at the same frequency.
    Synonyms: simultaneous, in phase, in sync, in step, synchronised, nonasynchronous, metachronous
    Antonyms: asynchronous, antisynchronous
    • 1909, Adolf Paul Oppé, Raphael, London: Methuen, page 151:
      But in these pictures it was possible for all the incidents to coexist at the one moment. In the 'Release of Peter' this was not possible. The waking and astonished soldiers to the left might be looking upon the miracle of the centre, but the escape of the Apostle over their recumbent bodies could not be synchronous with either of the other scenes
    • 1960 June, “New Lifting Bridge at Kings Ferry”, in Railway Magazine, page 388:
      There is a synchronous tie between the motors in each machine room to ensure that the span remains level during raising and lowering.
  2. (computing, of communication) Interacting with other elements in series; blocking; interacting with the same program or thread as other operations, thereby preventing those operations from resuming until the operation of interest is complete.
    Synonyms: blocking, modal
    Antonym: asynchronous
    Coordinate term: plesiochronous
    • 2014, Richard Blewett, Andrew Clymer, Pro Asynchronous Programming with .NET, page 25:
      Post is a “fire and forget” where the UI thread work is performed asynchronously; Send is synchronous in that the call blocks until the UI thread work has been performed.

Usage notes

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  • Sense 1 indicates that multiple actions take place in parallel during the same period of time.
  • In the context of computing and communications, sense 2 is often used to emphasize the opposite: that the item of interest (the main thread, or program, or network node) cannot interact with more than one other item (such as a child thread or storage device) in parallel during the same period of time. The item of interest must finish handling or interacting with one other thread or device before starting to interact with another one. So one interaction finishes 'at the same time' that another starts.

Hyponyms

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Derived terms

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Descendants

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  • Translingual: ␖

Translations

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