Asymmetric relation

Not to be confused with Antisymmetric relation.

Transitive binary relations
Symmetric Antisymmetric Connected Well-founded Has joins Has meets Reflexive Irreflexive Asymmetric Total, Semiconnex Anti- reflexive Equivalence relation Y ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Preorder (Quasiorder) ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Partial order ✗ Y ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Total preorder ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Total order ✗ Y Y ✗ ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Prewellordering ✗ ✗ Y Y ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Well-quasi-ordering ✗ ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Well-ordering ✗ Y Y Y ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Lattice ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Y Y Y ✗ ✗ Join-semilattice ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Y ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Meet-semilattice ✗ Y ✗ ✗ ✗ Y Y ✗ ✗ Strict partial order ✗ Y ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ Y Y Strict weak order ✗ Y ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ Y Y Strict total order ✗ Y Y ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ Y Y Symmetric Antisymmetric Connected Well-founded Has joins Has meets Reflexive Irreflexive Asymmetric Definitions, for all $a,b$ and ${\displaystyle S\neq \varnothing$ :} ${\begin{aligned}&aRb\\\Rightarrow {}&bRa\end{aligned}}$ ${\begin{aligned}aRb{\text{ and }}&bRa\\\Rightarrow a={}&b\end{aligned}}$ ${\begin{aligned}a\neq {}&b\Rightarrow \\aRb{\text{ or }}&bRa\end{aligned}}$ ${\begin{aligned}\min S\\{\text{exists}}\end{aligned}}$ ${\begin{aligned}a\vee b\\{\text{exists}}\end{aligned}}$ ${\begin{aligned}a\wedge b\\{\text{exists}}\end{aligned}}$ $aRa$ ${\text{not }}aRa$ ${\begin{aligned}aRb\Rightarrow \\{\text{not }}bRa\end{aligned}}$
Y indicates that the column's property is always true for the row's term (at the very left), while ✗ indicates that the property is not guaranteed in general (it might, or might not, hold). For example, that every equivalence relation is symmetric, but not necessarily antisymmetric, is indicated by Y in the "Symmetric" column and ✗ in the "Antisymmetric" column, respectively. All definitions tacitly require the homogeneous relation $R$ be transitive: for all $a,b,c,$ if $aRb$ and $bRc$ then $aRc.$ A term's definition may require additional properties that are not listed in this table.

In mathematics, an asymmetric relation is a binary relation $R$ on a set $X$ where for all $a,b\in X,$ if $a$ is related to $b$ then $b$ is not related to $a.$