atomic

From atom + -ic.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: əˈtŏm.ĭk, IPA^(key): /əˈtɒm.ɪk/
• (General American) enPR: əˈtä.mĭk, IPA^(key): /əˈtɑː.mɪk/

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• (General Australian) enPR: əˈtŏm.ĭk, IPA^(key): /əˈtɔm.ɪk/
• Rhymes: -ɒmɪk

atomic (not comparable)

2. (physics, chemistry) Of or relating to atoms; composed of atoms; monatomic.

   Antonym: molecular

   A stream of atomic hydrogen is emitted.

4. Employing or relating to nuclear energy or processes.

   atomic energy; atomic bombs

   Some nutjob once built a small atomic pile in his back yard.

   1. (colloquial, by extension) Very strong and overpowering.

      Synonym: nuclear

   • 1955, David J. Dallin, Soviet Espionage, page 495:

     Before the atomic spy Allan Nunn May left Canada to go to London, a treff in London had to be arranged for him and another agent.

6. Infinitesimally small.

   The hairs on a dust mite are almost atomic.

8. Unable to be split or made any smaller.

   Synonyms: discrete, indivisible, unatomizable

   A bit is an atomic item of data.

   2. (programming, of a commit in a VCS) Containing a single change, as opposed to involving numerous unrelated changes.
   4. (logic, of a proposition) Lacking logical operators; unable to be made simpler in logical form.
   5. (order theory, of a partially ordered set with a least element 0) Such that for every element ${\displaystyle b>0}$ there exists an atom ${\displaystyle a}$ such that ${\displaystyle b\geq a>0}$.
10. (computing, of an operation) Guaranteed to complete either fully or not at all while waiting in a pause, and running synchronously when called by multiple asynchronous threads.

    In order to avoid race conditions, this operation has to be atomic.

    Whenever possible, use atomic types instead of mutexes.

    • 2006, Tim Peierls, Brian Goetz, Joshua Bloch, Joseph Bowbeer, Doug Lea, David Holmes, Java Concurrency in Practice, Pearson Education, →ISBN, page 325:

      It also provides an atomic compareAndSet method (which if successful has the memory effects of both reading and writing a volatile variable) and, for convenience, atomic add, increment, and decrement methods.

atomic (plural atomics)

1. (computing) An atomic operation.

• “atomic”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
• “atomic”, in Merriam-Webster.com Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “atomic”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

• -o-matic, matico

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atomic m (feminine singular atomica, masculine plural atomics, feminine plural atomicas)

1. atomic

• atòm, atòme

Borrowed from French atomique. By surface analysis, atom +‎ -ic.

atomic m or n (feminine singular atomică, masculine plural atomici, feminine/neuter plural atomice)

1. atomic