Adiabatic
adj, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An adiabatic curve or graph
- 1 Without gain or loss of heat (and thus with no change in entropy, in the quasistatic approximation). not-comparable
"The line drawn on the indicator diagram in the latter case has been named by Professor Rankine an Adiabatic line, because it is defined by the condition that heat is not allowed to pass through (διαβαίνειν) the vessel which confines the substance."
- 2 Involving the slow change of the Hamiltonian of a system from its initial value to a final value. not-comparable
"In this section we examine the limiting cases when T is very small (sudden change) and very large (adiabatic change)."
- 1 occurring without loss or gain of heat wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"The line drawn on the indicator diagram in the latter case has been named by Professor Rankine an Adiabatic line, because it is defined by the condition that heat is not allowed to pass through (διαβαίνειν) the vessel which confines the substance."
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”).
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.