deadlock
/ˈdɛdˌlɑk/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.97 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A standstill resulting from the opposition of two evenly matched forces; a stalemate or impasse.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "The negotiation ended in deadlock, with neither party willing to compromise on the price."
- "If synchronization is always performed in least-first order with respect to object tags, then situations can never arise in which one thread has the synchronization lock for x while waiting for y and another has the lock for y while waiting for x. Instead, they will both obtain the locks in the same order, thus avoiding this form of deadlock."
- "A suspect was arrested on November 30 and charged with attempted murder. The evidence against him consisted of two jailhouse informers and an eyewitness who picked him out of a lineup after having identified a different man in an initial photo array. A jury ultimately convicted the suspect of assault after deadlocking twice in three days of deliberation."
- "Since we cannot solve this problem completely, it may sometimes be better to use explicit locks and risk deadlock if a thread exits unexpectedly. It may be better to have a deadlocked system than to have a corrupted system."
Etymology
Etymology tree English dead Proto-Indo-European *lewg-der. Proto-Germanic *luką Proto-West Germanic *lok Old English loc Middle English lok English lock English deadlock From dead + lock.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈdɛdˌlɑk/
- British English: /ˈdɛdˌlɒk/