open system

American  

noun

Thermodynamics.

1. a region separated from its surroundings by a boundary that admits a transfer of matter or energy across it.

---

open system British  

noun

1. computing an operating system that is not specific to a particular supplier, but conforms to more widely compatible standards

---

open system Scientific  

1. A physical system that interacts with other systems. The physical description of an open system can appear to violate conservation laws; for example, in a good description of the mechanism of energy transfer in a car engine (gears, driveshaft, and so on), energy will appear to be lost from the system over time, despite the law of conservation of energy. This is because the system is open, losing energy (in the form of heat) to surrounding systems (through friction). A system that loses energy in this way also called a dissipative system.

2. Compare closed system

---

Etymology

Origin of open system

First recorded in 1935–40

Compare meaning

How does open-system compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• open system vs. closed system

Example Sentences

This water vapor could come directly from the ambient air, in which case the TCM is an open system.

From Science Daily • Nov. 19, 2024

He tasked Bender with leading an effort to devise a new, more open system for choosing the state’s presidential delegates.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 14, 2024

Meanwhile, tires are a fundamentally open system, so there is no viable way to capture the polluting particles that fly off of them.

From Salon • Sep. 27, 2023

The ocean is an open system, and large-scale interventions carry risks, some of which may include biodiversity loss, uncontrollable algae blooms, or acidification in the deep sea.

From Scientific American • Sep. 12, 2023

The Internet is an open system, everything is published, everything gets argued about, basically by anybody who can get in.

From The Hacker Crackdown, law and disorder on the electronic frontier by Sterling, Bruce