Kinetic

//kɪˈnɛtɪk// adj, slang

adj, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Relating to motion. not-comparable
  2. 2
    Relating to kinesis or motor function. not-comparable
  3. 3
    Relating to the movement of an organism in response to an external stimulus. not-comparable
  4. 4
    Relating to the force driving life forward. not-comparable
  5. 5
    Relating to active warfare or the use of lethal force.^([W]) euphemistic, not-comparable
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  1. 6
    Frantic; busy. not-comparable, slang

    "Sorry it took so long; it's been kind of kinetic around here."

Adjective
  1. 1
    supplying motive force wordnet
  2. 2
    characterized by motion wordnet
  3. 3
    relating to the motion of material bodies and the forces associated therewith wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
activeanimateddynamicvigorousmotilevagile

Example

More examples

"Temperature is mean kinetic energy, not energy over volume; compression heats a gas by doing work on it; and a gas that expands without doing work does not cool."

Etymology

From Ancient Greek κινητικός (kinētikós, “puts in motion”), from κινέω (kinéō, “I move, put in motion”).

Related phrases

kinetic architecturekinetic artkinetic energykinetic novelkinetic sandkinetic scrollingkinetic sculpturekinetic temperaturekinetic typographypost-kinetic

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