Synchronized

Synchronized refers to something that occurs at the same time or is arranged to happen in a coordinated fashion. The term is used in everyday language to describe events, processes, or artifacts that are aligned in time or sequence. It can describe actions that are coordinated, as well as mechanisms designed to enforce or achieve such alignment. In many fields, synchronization is essential to ensure consistency, safety, or coherence across components or participants.

Origin and related terms: The word derives from Greek syn- "together" and choros "dance" and entered English through Latin synchronus and French synchronisé. The noun is synchronization, and related terms include synchronise (British spelling) and asynchronous, which denotes lack of simultaneous action.

In computing and information systems, synchronization is the coordination of concurrent processes to access shared resources safely. The term "synchronized" is used as a keyword or construct in several programming languages to denote mutual exclusion, such as synchronized blocks or methods that serialize access to a critical section. Synchronization also encompasses clock or data synchronization in distributed systems, multimedia synchronization (lip-sync, audio-video sync), and database replication that requires writes to be coordinated. Improper synchronization can lead to race conditions, deadlocks, or data inconsistency.

Outside computing, synchronization appears in biology (circadian rhythms), music and film (tempo, lip-sync), and engineering (rail traffic signaling, power grid phasor alignment).