Synchronous
adj ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 At the same time, at the same frequency.
- 2 Single-threaded; blocking; occurring in the same thread as other computations, thereby preventing those computations from resuming until the communication is complete.
"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."
- 1 occurring or existing at the same time or having the same period or phase wordnet
- 2 (digital communication) pertaining to a transmission technique that requires a common clock signal (a timing reference) between the communicating devices in order to coordinate their transmissions wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Over the years, the Moon has fallen into a synchronous orbit with Earth."
Etymology
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.
Related phrases
More for "synchronous"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.