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entropy

noun
EN-truh-pee/ˈɛntɹəpi/

Pluralentropies (some meanings)

3 meanings of entropy

Practice

  1. 1
    everyday chaosnoununcountable
    The way things fall into disorder and mess when no one looks after them.

    Without a teacher in the room, entropy took over and the class got very loud.

    If I don't clean my room every week, entropy wins.

    UsageSay entropy wins or fight entropy.

    Similardecay, disorder, chaos, deterioration

    Oppositeorder

    Note
  2. 2
    nouncountable or uncountable
    In physics, a measure of how disordered a system is, or how much of its energy has spread out and cannot work.

    A gas spread through a whole room has more entropy than the same gas squeezed into a corner.

    When ice melts, its entropy goes up because the water molecules can move in many more ways.

    Note
  3. 3
    information contentnouncountable
    In information science, a measure of how unpredictable a message is, which is also how much information it carries.

    A fair coin toss has more entropy than a coin that always lands on heads.

    Random noise has high entropy, so it is very hard to squeeze into a smaller file.

    Note

Practice

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Origin

From German Entropie, a word made in 1865 by the scientist Rudolph Clausius. He based it on the word for energy, using a Greek word meaning “change”.

Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 5 facts