n.
Pronunciation: ' en-tr ə -p ē
Function: noun
Inflected Form: plural -pies
Etymology: International Scientific Vocabulary 2 en- + Greek trop ē change, literally, turn, from trepein to turn
Date: 1875
1 : a measure of the unavailable energy in a closed thermodynamic system that is also usually considered to be a measure of the system's disorder, that is a property of the system's state, and that varies directly with any reversible change in heat in the system and inversely with the temperature of the system broadly : the degree of disorder or uncertainty in a system
2 a : the degradation of the matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity b : a process of degradation or running down or a trend to disorder
3 : CHAOS , DISORGANIZATION , RANDOMNESS
– en · tro · pic \ en- ' tr ō -pik, - ' trä-pik \ adjective
– en · tro · pi · cal · ly \ -pi-k( ə -)l ē \ adverb