adj, noun — 3 senses
/ˌeɪ.dɪəˈbæt.ɪk/ · /ˌæd.ɪəˈbæt.ɪk/
Etymology 19th-century coinage (introduced by W. J. M. Rankine in the 1860s) based on Ancient Greek ἀδιάβατος (adiábatos, “impassable”), used of terrain (rivers, forests) by Xenophon, from ἀ- (a-, “not”) + διά (diá, “through”) + βατός (batós, “passable”), from βαίνω (baínō, “to go”).
Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Physics, Thermodynamics Of a process Without gain or loss of heat (and thus with no change in entropy, in the quasistatic approximation).
Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Physics Of a process Involving the slow change of the Hamiltonian of a system from its initial value to a final value.
Quantum mechanics
Etymology 19th-century coinage (introduced by W. J. M. Rankine in the 1860s) based on Ancient Greek ἀδιάβατος (adiábatos, “impassable”), used of terrain (rivers, forests) by Xenophon, from ἀ- (a-, “not”) + διά (diá, “through”) + βατός (batós, “passable”), from βαίνω (baínō, “to go”).
An adiabatic curve or graph
Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.