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saturation - 7 dictionary results

sat⋅u⋅ra⋅tion

  [sach-uh-rey-shuhn]
Use saturation in a Sentence
–noun
1. the act or process of saturating.
2. the state of being saturated.
3. Meteorology. a condition in the atmosphere corresponding to 100 percent relative humidity.
4. the degree of chroma or purity of a color; the degree of freedom from admixture with white.
5. Magnetism. the state of maximum magnetization of a ferromagnetic material.
Origin:
1545–55; < LL saturātiōn- (s. of saturātiō) a filling, equiv. to saturāt(us) (see saturate ) + -iōn- -ion
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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sat·u·ra·tion   (sāch'ə-rā'shən)   
n.  
    1. The act or process of saturating.
    2. The condition of being saturated.
    3. The condition of being full to or beyond satisfaction; satiety.
  2. Physics A state of a ferromagnetic substance in which an increase in applied magnetic field strength does not produce an increase in magnetization.
  3. Chemistry The state of a compound or solution that is fully saturated.
  4. Meteorology A condition in which air at a specific temperature contains all the water vapor it can hold; 100 percent relative humidity.
  5. Vividness of hue; degree of difference from a gray of the same lightness or brightness. Also called intensity. See Table at color.
  6. Intensive shelling or bombing of a military target to achieve total destruction.
  7. The flooding of a market with all of a commodity that consumers can purchase.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Saturation

Sat`u*ra"tion\, n. [L. saturatio: cf. F. saturation.]

1. The act of saturating, or the state of being saturating; complete penetration or impregnation.

2. (Chem.) The act, process, or result of saturating a substance, or of combining it to its fullest extent.

3. (Optics) Freedom from mixture or dilution with white; purity; -- said of colors.

Note: The degree of saturation of a color is its relative purity, or freedom from admixture with white.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Main Entry: sat·u·ra·tion
Pronunciation: "sach-&-'rA-sh&n
Function: noun
1 : the act of saturating : the stateof being saturated
2 : conversion of an unsaturated to a saturated chemical compound (as by hydrogenation)
3 : a state of maximum impregnation;especially : the presence in air of the most water possible under existent pressure and temperature
4 a : the one of the three psychological dimensions of colorperception that is related to the purity of the color and that decreases as the amount of white present in the stimulus increases saturation in a red hue is well understood ifwe remember pink is a fundamental red hue diluted or mixed with considerable white —Practical Color Television> called also intensity; —compare BRIGHTNESS, HUE b (1) : degree ofdifference from the gray having the same lightness —used of an object color (2) : degree of difference from the achromatic light-source color of the same brightness —used of alight-source color
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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saturation sat·u·ra·tion (sāch'ə-rā'shən)
n.
Abbr. sat.

  1. The act or process of saturating.
  2. The condition of being saturated.
  3. The condition of being full to or beyond satisfaction; satiety.
  4. Filling of all the available sites on an enzyme molecule by its substrate, or on a hemoglobin molecule by molecular oxygen or carbon monoxide.
  5. In optics, the degree which colors of the same wavelength are differentiated from one another on the basis of purity which correlates with the amount of white present, such as red from pink.

The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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saturation   (sāch'ə-rā'shən)  Pronunciation Key 
  1. The state of a physical system, such as a solution, containing as much of another substance, such as a solute, as is possible at a given temperature or pressure.
  2. The vividness of a color's hue. Saturation measures the degree to which a color differs from a gray of the same darkness or lightness. Compare hue, value.
  3. The state of being a saturated organic compound. See more at saturated.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
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saturation
1. In colour theory, the "colourfulness" of a stimulus relative to its brightness, the amount of the dominant wavelength relative to other wavelengths in the colour, one of the three coordinates in the hue, saturation, value (HSV) and hue, saturation, brightness (HSB) colour models.
White, black and grey contain equal amounts of red, green and blue light and are completely unsaturated. A pure colour with very little gray in it is highly saturated. The amount of saturation does not affect the hue of a colour and is unrelated to the value (total amount of light in a colour).
There are several competing mathematical definitions of saturation.
(http://www.ncsu.edu/scivis/lessons/colormodels/color_models2.html#saturation).
(http://www.pomona.edu/academics/courserelated/classprojects/visual-lit/saturation/saturation.html).
2. The state of any system that is operating at its maximum capacity, e.g. a network connection that is carry a continuous stream of data with no idle time. Capacity planning aims to monitor load and increase resources before saturation is reached.
(2008-05-09)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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