saturation

plural saturations

1. uncountableusuallyThe act of saturating or the process of being saturated.

   Traffic at Dover Marine has developed far beyond anything envisaged when the station was built. The layout has become rather cramped, and prodigies of organisation are performed annually by all concerned to save complete saturation.

   1959 October 28, T. W. E. Roche, “Traffic Working at Dover Marine Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 680

2. uncountableusuallynatural sciencesThe condition in which, after a sufficient increase in a causal force, no further increase in the resultant effect is possible; e.g. the state of a ferromagnetic material that cannot be further magnetized.
3. uncountableusuallychemistryThe state of a saturated solution.
4. uncountableusuallychemistryThe state of an organic compound that has no double or triple bonds.
5. countableusuallymathematicsThe smallest set containing S which is saturated with respect to the equivalence relation or function.
6. uncountableusuallyclimatologyThe state of the atmosphere when it is saturated with water vapour; 100% humidity.
7. uncountableusuallyartThe intensity or vividness of a colour.
8. uncountableusuallyChromatic purity; freedom from dilution with white.
9. uncountableusuallyintense bombing of a military target with the aim of destroying it.
10. uncountableusuallyThe flooding of a market with all of a product that can be sold.
11. uncountableusuallyentertainmentAn effect on the sound of an electric guitar, used primarily in heavy metal music.
12. uncountableusuallycommunicationsThe condition at which a component of the system has reached its maximum traffic-handling capacity, i.e. one erlang per circuit.
13. uncountableusuallycommunicationsThe point at which the output of a linear device, such as a linear amplifier, deviates significantly from being a linear function of the input when the input signal is increased.

    Modulation often requires that amplifiers operate below saturation.

14. uncountableusuallycomputingA form of arithmetic in which all operations are limited to a fixed range of values. See Saturation arithmetic.

    Packed add with wraparound […] Packed add signed with saturation […] Packed add unsigned with saturation

    1996, Byte, volume 21, page 60