Meaning

3 senses
  1. (countable, uncountable)Any equipment used for visual signalling by means of flags, lights, or mechanically moving arms, which are used to represent letters of the alphabet, or words.

    семафо́рsemafór

    an apparatus for visual signaling with lights or mechanically moving arms

  2. (countable, uncountable)A visual system for transmitting information using the above equipment; especially, by means of two flags held one in each hand, using an alphabetic and numeric code based on the position of the signaller's arms; flag semaphore.

    семафо́рsemafór, флажко́вая сигнализа́цияflažkóvaja signalizácija

    семафо́рsemafór

  3. (countable, uncountable)A bit, token, fragment of code, or some other mechanism which is used to restrict access to a shared function or device to a single process at a time, or to synchronize and coordinate events in different processes.

    The thread increments the semaphore to prevent other threads from entering the critical section at the same time.

    Semaphor

    семафо́рsemafór

Examples

4 sentences
  1. The car is so old that it has a turning semaphore.

  2. Increment the semaphore by 1.

  3. Today we're going to make a semaphore to control access to our variable by different threads.

  4. Tom used his flags to spell out "HELP" in semaphore.

Translations

8 languages
Українська
By meaning 1
visual system for transmitting information:
Русский
By meaning 2
equipment used for visual signalling:
visual system for transmitting information using flags:
Deutsch
By meaning 1
mechanism used to restrict access to a shared function or device to a single process at a time:

Origin

The noun is borrowed from French sémaphore, from Ancient Greek σῆμα (sêma, “mark, sign, to

The noun is borrowed from French sémaphore, from Ancient Greek σῆμα (sêma, “mark, sign, token”) + French -phore (from Ancient Greek -φόρος (-phóros, suffix indicating a bearer or carrier)). By surface analysis, sema- + -phore.

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

semaphore — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto