Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Rapidity or speed of motion; swiftness.
  • noun Physics A vector quantity whose magnitude is a body's speed and whose direction is the body's direction of motion.
  • noun The rate of speed of action or occurrence.
  • noun The rate at which money changes hands in an economy.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The velocity at which the mode of flow of a liquid, in a pipe or channel, is modified by the setting up of eddy-motion and the consequent interruption of the stream lines.
  • noun Same as critical velocity .
  • noun The velocity of a given individual wave-length of light as opposed to the group velocity of a complex beam taken as a whole.
  • noun Quickness of motion; speed in movement; swiftness; rapidity; celerity: used only (or chiefly) of inanimate objects. See def. 2.
  • noun .2. In physics, rate of motion; the rate at which a body changes its position in space; the rate of change of position of a point per unit of time.
  • noun In music, decided rapidity of tempo or pace, particularly in a bravura passage.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Quickness of motion; swiftness; speed; celerity; rapidity
  • noun (Mech.) Rate of motion; the relation of motion to time, measured by the number of units of space passed over by a moving body or point in a unit of time, usually the number of feet passed over in a second. See the Note under Speed.
  • noun See under Angular.
  • noun the velocity of a moving body at starting; especially, the velocity of a projectile as it leaves the mouth of a firearm from which it is discharged.
  • noun the velocity with which a body approaches or recedes from another body, whether both are moving or only one.
  • noun velocity in which the same number of units of space are described in each successive unit of time.
  • noun velocity in which the space described varies from instant to instant, either increasing or decreasing; -- in the former case called accelerated velocity, in the latter, retarded velocity; the acceleration or retardation itself being also either uniform or variable.
  • noun See under Virtual.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun physics A vector quantity that denotes the rate of change of position with respect to time, or a speed with the directional component.
  • noun Rapidity of motion.
  • noun The rate of occurrence.
  • noun economics The number of times that an average unit of currency is spent during a specific period of time.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun distance travelled per unit time

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English velocite, from Old French, from Latin vēlōcitās, from vēlōx, vēlōc-, fast; see weg- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin vēlōcitās ("speed"), from vēlōx ("fast").

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Examples

  • In 1899 Lenard demonstrated the cause to be the emission of electrons at a certain velocity from the negatively charged body.

    Nobel Prize in Physics 1921 - Presentation Speech 1967

  • One of the things -- we're working on things like what we call velocity, which is the ability to turn the backlogs faster.

    SeekingAlpha.com: Home Page 2009

  • And it's what we call the velocity of money still has to improve.

    Get Briefed: Louis Navellier 2010

  • Hamels, who said his velocity is always down this early in the season, said location was his biggest problem, along with Colorado's thin air, which robbed him of his curveball and forced him to throw a steady diet of changeups, which he hung, and fastballs, which '' were right down the middle. ''

    USATODAY.com 2008

  • And it's what we call the velocity of money still has to improve.

    Transcript: Louis Navellier 2010

  • Opus Dei weirdican Ruth Kelly was unavailable for religious comment, as she was playing with her cilice, but BBC Weather Girl Carol Kirkwood said, "We advise people not to travel, as getting a frog in the face at terminal velocity is not likely to make for a good day".

    Archive 2009-02-01 Dungeekin 2009

  • But I do think that velocity is a important factor in penetration regardless of the caliber used as long as tough quality bullets are what actually strikes the animal.

    Bullet performance 2010

  • But I do think that velocity is a important factor in penetration regardless of the caliber used as long as tough quality bullets are what actually strikes the animal.

    Bullet performance 2010

  • The Earth's escape velocity is about 11 km per second.

    Chris Lightfoot's quiz nwhyte 2009

  • Opus Dei weirdican Ruth Kelly was unavailable for religious comment, as she was playing with her cilice, but BBC Weather Girl Carol Kirkwood said, "We advise people not to travel, as getting a frog in the face at terminal velocity is not likely to make for a good day".

    More Weather Warnings for the UK Dungeekin 2009

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