lock-free
|lock-free|
🇺🇸
/ˌlɑkˈfriː/
🇬🇧
/ˌlɒkˈfriː/
free from locks; non-blocking
Etymology
'lock-free' originates from Modern English as a compound of the words 'lock' and 'free', where 'lock' referred to a fastening or device for securing, and 'free' meant 'not bound' or 'not restricted'.
'lock' comes from Old English 'loc' meaning 'bolt, enclosure' and developed into Middle English 'lok'; 'free' comes from Old English 'frēo'/'freo' meaning 'not in bondage, exempt'. The compound 'lock-free' arose in modern English usage and was later adopted as a technical term in computing.
Initially the compound would be understood literally as 'free from locks' (e.g., a door without a lock); over time, and especially with the rise of concurrent computing, it acquired the technical meaning 'non-blocking; not using mutual-exclusion locks'.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
the property or quality of being lock-free (see adjective).
The lock-freeness of the implementation improved throughput under contention.
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Adjective 1
in concurrent programming and data structures: designed to operate without mutual-exclusion locks; a lock-free algorithm guarantees system-wide progress (at least one thread makes progress) even if individual threads may be delayed—i.e., a form of non-blocking synchronization.
The library provides lock-free data structures for high-performance concurrent access.
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Last updated: 2025/10/06 03:34