I think what you're looking for is Idempotent. Idempotence is a property that can apply to any sort of operation (not just databases). It means that doing the operation any number of times more than once is equivalent to doing it once. I.e. every subsequent operation after the first leaves the state unchanged.
For example, the play button on most DVD remotes is idempotent while playing a video because no matter how many times you push it, it keeps playing. However a power button on your remote is usually not idempotent, because it toggles the machine on and off each time. Idempotence is a nice property because you don't always have to know what state a system is in before engaging an operation to try to produce a given state.