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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

polytropic en · ADJ

Pronunciation

  • (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

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

Meanings

  1. (not-comparable) Able to take various courses of action; resourceful, versatile, adaptable.
    • Odysseus, especially the polytropic Odysseus of the Odyssey, is a symbol of a carnivalized notion of identity. 2001, Nigel Nicholson, in Barta et al. (ed.), Carnivalizing Difference, p. 94
    • Just as quickly, however, she turned her polytropic talents to other fields, penning an incredible 7,000 encyclopedia articles during the mid-1950s. 1986, Rosemarie Arbur, Marion Zimmer Bradley:
  2. (not-comparable, obsolete, rare) Having many values.
  3. (not-comparable) Of bees or other insects: visiting a wide circle of flowers, visiting the flowers of many different species.
  4. (not-comparable) 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.
  5. (not-comparable) Focusing one’s attention on multiple sets of things at one time.
    • [I]t is the difference between having few interests highly aroused, the monotropic tendency, and having many interests less highly aroused, the polytropic tendency. 2005 January 5, Dinah Murray, Mike Lesser, Wendy Lawson, “Attention, monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism”, in Autism, volume 9, number 2, →DOI, page 140:
    • Where polytropic minds comfortably entertain many simultaneous interests, each moderately aroused, the monotropic mind will maintain only very few simultaneous interests, with each one highly aroused and intensely focused upon. 2021 April 29, Gemma L. Williams, Tim Wharton, Caroline Jagoe, “Mutual (Mis)understanding: Reframing Autistic Pragmatic “Impairments” Using Relevance Theory”, in Frontiers in Psychology, number 12, →DOI, page 616664:

Antonyms

monotropic

Deriveds

nonpolytropic

Translations (5)

it politropico (Translations) · es politrópico (Translations) · fr polytropique (Translations) · de polytrop (Translations) · fi polytrooppinen (Translations)