一个更容易理解的方法是，是什么使代码不是线程安全的。有两个主要问题会使线程应用程序产生不需要的行为。

Accessing shared variable without locking This variable could be modified by another thread while executing the function. You want to prevent it with a locking mechanism to be sure of the behavior of your function. General rule of thumb is to keep the lock for the shortest time possible. Deadlock caused by mutual dependency on shared variable If you have two shared variable A and B. In one function, you lock A first then later you lock B. In another function, you start locking B and after a while, you lock A. This is a potential deadlock where first function will wait for B to be unlocked when second function will wait for A to be unlocked. This issue will probably not occur in your development environment and only from time to time. To avoid it, all locks must always be in the same order.

一个更容易理解的方法是，是什么使代码不是线程安全的。有两个主要问题会使线程应用程序产生不需要的行为。

Accessing shared variable without locking This variable could be modified by another thread while executing the function. You want to prevent it with a locking mechanism to be sure of the behavior of your function. General rule of thumb is to keep the lock for the shortest time possible. Deadlock caused by mutual dependency on shared variable If you have two shared variable A and B. In one function, you lock A first then later you lock B. In another function, you start locking B and after a while, you lock A. This is a potential deadlock where first function will wait for B to be unlocked when second function will wait for A to be unlocked. This issue will probably not occur in your development environment and only from time to time. To avoid it, all locks must always be in the same order.

我喜欢Brian Goetz的Java并发实践中的定义，因为它的全面性

如果一个类在从多个线程访问时行为正确，那么它就是线程安全的，而不管运行时环境对这些线程的执行是如何调度或交错的，并且在调用代码方面没有额外的同步或其他协调。

一个信息量更大的问题是，是什么使代码不线程安全——答案是，有四个条件必须成立……想象一下下面的代码(它是机器语言翻译)

totalRequests = totalRequests + 1
MOV EAX, [totalRequests]   // load memory for tot Requests into register
INC EAX                    // update register
MOV [totalRequests], EAX   // store updated value back to memory

The first condition is that there are memory locations that are accessible from more than one thread. Typically, these locations are global/static variables or are heap memory reachable from global/static variables. Each thread gets its own stack frame for function/method scoped local variables, so these local function/method variables, otoh, (which are on the stack) are accessible only from the one thread that owns that stack. The second condition is that there is a property (often called an invariant), which is associated with these shared memory locations, that must be true, or valid, for the program to function correctly. In the above example, the property is that “totalRequests must accurately represent the total number of times any thread has executed any part of the increment statement”. Typically, this invariant property needs to hold true (in this case, totalRequests must hold an accurate count) before an update occurs for the update to be correct. The third condition is that the invariant property does NOT hold during some part of the actual update. (It is transiently invalid or false during some portion of the processing). In this particular case, from the time totalRequests is fetched until the time the updated value is stored, totalRequests does not satisfy the invariant. The fourth and final condition that must occur for a race to happen (and for the code to therefore NOT be "thread-safe") is that another thread must be able to access the shared memory while the invariant is broken, thereby causing inconsistent or incorrect behavior.

用最简单的话来说:P 如果在一个代码块上执行多个线程是安全的，那么它就是线程安全的*

*适用条件

条件被其他的答案提到，比如 1. 如果你执行一个线程或多个线程，结果应该是相同的。

正如其他人所指出的，线程安全意味着如果一段代码同时被多个线程使用，那么它将正常工作。

值得注意的是，这有时是有代价的，计算机时间和更复杂的编码，所以它并不总是可取的。如果一个类只能安全地在一个线程上使用，那么这样做可能会更好。

例如，Java有两个几乎相同的类:StringBuffer和StringBuilder。不同之处在于StringBuffer是线程安全的，因此StringBuffer的单个实例可以同时被多个线程使用。StringBuilder不是线程安全的，它被设计为仅由一个线程构建String的情况下(绝大多数情况下)的高性能替代品。