adjacente

Adjacente is a Portuguese adjective meaning neighboring, next to, or in close proximity. It is used to describe objects that share a border, a common point, or are immediately beside one another. The term also appears in mathematics, geography, and computer science to indicate elements that are connected or adjacent in a structure such as a graph or grid. The related noun is adjacência, referring to the state or relation of being adjacent.

Etimologia: adjacente comes from Latin adiacēns, the present participle of adiacēre, meaning “to lie near/next to.” The form entered Portuguese through the Latin-medieval and French linguistic lineages, evolving into the modern adjective with the typical -ente ending.

Uso principal: In geometry, a side or angle can be described as adjacente to another, for example, “lado adjacente” or “vértice adjacente.” In graphs and networks, a node is adjacente to another if there is a direct connection (edge) between them, yielding terms such as vértices adjacentes. In urban planning or cartography, blocks or parcels may be labeled as adjacentes to indicate proximity or adjacency. In computing, the concept is formalized in the adjacency relation or a matriz de adjacência for graphs, which encodes which pairs of vertices are adjacentes.

Notas e termos relacionados: O equivalente em espanhol é adyacente, com grafia distinta. Em português, o sustantivo correspondente é adjacência, e há usos comuns em expressões como “células adjacentes” em gradeamentos ou planilhas. Adjacência é também um conceito fundamental em teoria dos grafos, geografia, design urbano e algoritmos de grafos, onde identificar itens adjacentes facilita a análise de vizinhança, conectividade e fluxo.