Mutex

//ˈmjuːtɛks// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An object in a program that serves as a lock, used to negotiate mutual exclusion among threads.

    "The ability to set a maximum waiting time provides another reason why in some circumstances, you might prefer to use a mutex rather than a lock statement."

Verb
  1. 1
    To apply a mutex to. transitive

    "Or you can have a single pipe that is mutexed so each thread can only write to the pipe exclusively. Alternatively, you can have each thread put the finished fd in a globally mutexed list."

Synonyms

All synonyms
mutant

Example

More examples

"The ability to set a maximum waiting time provides another reason why in some circumstances, you might prefer to use a mutex rather than a lock statement."

Etymology

Syllabic abbreviation of mutually exclusive or mutual exclusion.

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