Velocity

//vəˈlɒsəti// noun

noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A vector quantity that denotes the rate of change of position with respect to time, combining speed with a directional component. countable, uncountable

    "A car racing in a circle may retain the same speed while continually changing its velocity."

  2. 2
    distance travelled per unit time wordnet
  3. 3
    A rapidity of motion. countable, uncountable

    "The train was travelling at a slower velocity than usual."

  4. 4
    The rate of occurrence. countable, uncountable
  5. 5
    The number of times that an average unit of currency is spent during a specific period of time. countable, uncountable
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  1. 6
    The value corresponding to how hard a key is struck on a MIDI controller or keyboard. countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms
speedspeedquicknessrapidityactivityactuation

Example

More examples

"The velocity of light is about 186,000 miles per second."

Etymology

From Middle French vélocité, from Latin vēlōcitās (“speed”), from vēlōx (“fast”), thus a doublet of veloce.

Related phrases

constant velocityfour-velocityroot mean square velocityvelocity curvevelocity dispersionvelocity potentialspeed directionspeed science

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