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deadlock

verb

  1. to come to an impasse, standstill, stalemate
L1380897 on Wikidata ↗

noun

  1. state in which members are blocking each other
  2. a tie score
L319105 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /ˈdɛdˌlɒk/ / /ˈdɛdˌlɑk/ / /ˈdedˌlɔk/

noun

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.

  1. A standstill resulting from the opposition of two evenly matched forces; a stalemate or impasse.

    The negotiation ended in deadlock, with neither party willing to compromise on the price.

  2. An inability to continue due to two programs or devices each requiring a response from the other before completing an operation.

    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.

  3. Synonym of deadbolt (“type of lock”).

verb

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.

  1. To cause or come to a 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.

  2. To bring to a state of deadlock.

    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.