Acceleration

//əkˌsɛl.əˈɹeɪ.ʃən// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act of accelerating, or the state of being accelerated; increase of motion or action; as opposed to retardation or deceleration. uncountable

    "A falling body moves toward the earth with an acceleration of velocity."

  2. 2
    the act of accelerating; increasing the speed wordnet
  3. 3
    The amount by which a speed or velocity increases (and so a scalar quantity or a vector quantity). countable

    "The boosters produce an acceleration of 20 metres per second per second."

  4. 4
    an increase in rate of change wordnet
  5. 5
    The change of velocity with respect to time (can include deceleration or changing direction). countable, uncountable
Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    (physics) a rate of increase of velocity wordnet
  2. 7
    The advancement of students at a rate that places them ahead of where they would be in the regular school curriculum. countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms
accelerandoaggravationbeefing-upblowing upblowupconcentration

Example

More examples

"Newton's Second Law says: "Force is equal to the change in momentum per change in time. For a constant mass, force equals mass times acceleration"."

Etymology

First attested in 1531. From French accélération or more likely directly from Latin accelerātiō (“a hastening, acceleration”). Equivalent to accelerate + -ion.

Related phrases

Planck accelerationacceleration clauseacceleration laneacceleration of gravityacceleration principleangular accelerationcentripetal accelerationfour-accelerationhardware accelerationplasma accelerationplasma wakefield accelerationproper acceleration

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.