adiabatic
/ˌeɪ.dɪəˈbæt.ɪk/ adjective, noun
Forms adiabatics
- adjective (physics, thermodynamics, of a process) Without gain or loss of heat (and thus with no change in entropy, in the quasistatic approximation).
- adjective (physics, quantum mechanics, of a process) Involving the slow change of the Hamiltonian of a system from its initial value to a final value.
- noun An adiabatic curve or graph
Antonyms
Etymology
19th-century coinage (introduced by W. J. M. Rankine in the 1860s) based on Ancient Greek ἀδιάβατος (adiábatos, “impassable”), used of terrain (rivers, forests) by Xenophon, from ἀ- (a-, “not”) + διά (diá, “through”) + βατός (batós, “passable”), from βαίνω (baínō, “to go”).
Webster’s 1913
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “adiabatic”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details