What is the intuitive meaning of a polytropic process?

[Carbon273]

What does it actually mean from an intuitive standpoint? I don’t want to simply memorize the equation. What is it really and when can it be used? What is the usefulness of it?

Thanks.

 

[Chestermiller]

It is a reversible ideal gas process in which the temperature is changed in tandem with the volume in such a way that the exponent n is constant.