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noun
1.
the act or process of saturating.
2.
the state of being saturated.
3.
Meteorology. a condition in the atmosphere corresponding to 100 percent relative humidity.
4.
the degree of chroma or purity of a color; the degree of freedom from admixture with white.
5.
Magnetism. the state of maximum magnetization of a ferromagnetic material.
noun
1.
the act of saturating or the state of being saturated
2.
(chem) the state of a chemical compound, solution, or vapour when it is saturated
3.
(meteorol) the state of the atmosphere when it can hold no more water vapour at its particular temperature and pressure, the relative humidity then being 100 per cent
4.
the attribute of a colour that enables an observer to judge its proportion of pure chromatic colour See also colour
5.
(physics) the state of a ferromagnetic material in which it is fully magnetized. The magnetic domains are then all fully aligned
6.
(electronics) the state of a valve or semiconductor device that is carrying the maximum current of which it is capable and is therefore unresponsive to further increases of input signal
7.
the level beyond which demand for a product or service is not expected to increase
modifier
8.
denoting the maximum possible intensity of coverage of an area: saturation bombing, a saturation release of a film

saturation sat·u·ra·tion (sāch’ə-rā’shən)
n.
Abbr. sat.

The act or process of saturating.

The condition of being saturated.

The condition of being full to or beyond satisfaction; satiety.

Filling of all the available sites on an enzyme molecule by its substrate, or on a hemoglobin molecule by molecular oxygen or carbon monoxide.

In optics, the degree which colors of the same wavelength are differentiated from one another on the basis of purity which correlates with the amount of white present, such as red from pink.

saturation
(sāch’ə-rā’shən)

The state of a physical system, such as a solution, containing as much of another substance, such as a solute, as is possible at a given temperature or pressure.

The vividness of a color’s hue. Saturation measures the degree to which a color differs from a gray of the same darkness or lightness. Compare hue, value.

The state of being a saturated organic compound. See more at saturated.

1. In colour theory, the “colourfulness” of a stimulus relative to its brightness, the amount of the dominant wavelength relative to other wavelengths in the colour, one of the three coordinates in the hue, saturation, value (HSV) and hue, saturation, brightness (HSB) colour models.
White, black and grey contain equal amounts of red, green and blue light and are completely unsaturated. A pure colour with very little gray in it is highly saturated. The amount of saturation does not affect the hue of a colour and is unrelated to the value (total amount of light in a colour).
There are several competing mathematical definitions of saturation.
(http://www.ncsu.edu/scivis/lessons/colormodels/color_models2.html#saturation).
(http://www.pomona.edu/academics/courserelated/classprojects/visual-lit/saturation/saturation.html).
2. The state of any system that is operating at its maximum capacity, e.g. a network connection that is carry a continuous stream of data with no idle time. Capacity planning aims to monitor load and increase resources before saturation is reached.
(2008-05-09)