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polytropic

adjective

  1. Able to take various courses of action; resourceful, versatile, adaptable.

    Just as quickly, however, she turned her polytropic talents to other fields, penning an incredible 7,000 encyclopedia articles during the mid-1950s.

  2. Having many values.

    obsolete, rare

  3. Of bees or other insects: visiting a wide circle of flowers, visiting the flowers of many different species.

  4. Pertaining to the constraint that variance in pressure or volume leaves heat constant; or (more generally) the constraint that any change in the thermodynamic properties leave a specific property constant.

Where it comes from

From Ancient Greek πολύτροπος (polútropos) (used in Homer to describe Odysseus) + -ic. In later senses after German polytrop, polytropisch.

Adapted from the Wiktionary entry polytropic (CC BY-SA 4.0).

← polytopianpomerium →

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