Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to a polymer lacking structural regularity.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Disconnected; without arrangement or order: in grammar, opposed to syntactic: as, an atactic sentence.
  • Same as ataxic.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective medicine Of or pertaining to ataxia
  • adjective chemistry Describing any regular polymer or other macromolecule in which the orientation of the subunits is random

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective lacking motor coordination; marked or caused by ataxia

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[a– + Greek taktikos, of order; see tactics.]

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Examples

  • Prof. Natta extended the research conducted by Ziegler on organometallic catalysts to the stereospecific polymerization, thus discovering new classes of polymers with a sterically ordered structure, viz. isotactic, syndiotactic and di-isotactic polymers and linear non branched olefinic polymers and copolymers with an atactic (or sterically nonordered) structure.

    Giulio Natta - Biography 1972

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