Word.ws English Dictionary

ectropy

ectropy noun: the overall increase in the organization of a system.

Noun

ectropy (countable and uncountable, plural ectropies)

  1. The overall increase in the organization of a system
    Synonyms:
    negentropy, extropy

Synonyms of ectropy

Antonyms

Forms of ectropy

pluralectropies

Origin of ectropy

“This term was suggested by W. V. Quine in discussions following this symposium: Entropy, he pointed out, is Greek for turning in; the opposite term should therefore be the Greek for turning out, namely ectropy. Since the coaction cardioid literally turns in and out of the circle of reference, his short, elegant term is used throughout.”

Words formed from ectropy

Questions about ectropy

What does ectropy mean?
Ectropy means the overall increase in the organization of a system.
What part of speech is ectropy?
Ectropy is a noun.
What is the plural of ectropy?
The plural of ectropy is ectropies.

Words near ectropy in the dictionary

  1. ectropionizes
  2. ectropionizing
  3. ectropions
  4. ectropium
  5. ectropiums
  6. ectropy
  7. ectrosyndactyly
  8. ectrotic
  9. ECTS
  10. ECTWT
  11. ectylurea

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ectropy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “ectropy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ectropy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.