acyclic

1. Botany. Not cyclic. Used especially of flowers whose parts are arranged in spirals rather than in whorls, as in magnolias.
2. Chemistry. Having an open-chain molecular structure rather than a ring-shaped structure.

Describing a compound that does not have a ring in its molecules.

The adjective has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: botany; not cyclic; especially having parts arranged in spirals rather than whorls
  Antonym: cyclic (meaning #2)

Meaning #2: chemistry; not cyclic; having an open chain structure
  Synonym: open-chain
  Antonym: cyclic (meaning #3)

Look up acyclic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Acyclic can refer to:

• in chemistry, a compound which is not cyclic, e.g. alkanes and acyclic aliphatic compounds
• in mathematics:
  • a graph without a cycle, especially
    • a directed acyclic graph
  • a chain complex in which all reduced homology groups are zero

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