Livelock

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A state resembling deadlock in which various computational processes are constantly changing but never reach a point where any of them can proceed. countable, uncountable

    "However, this can lead to livelock—the optimistic analog of indefinite blocking in which methods continuously spin without making any further progress."

Verb
  1. 1
    To enter a state of livelock.

Example

More examples

"However, this can lead to livelock—the optimistic analog of indefinite blocking in which methods continuously spin without making any further progress."

Etymology

(ca. 1971) live + lock; punning antonym for deadlock.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.