millisecond

noun

mil·​li·​sec·​ond ˈmi-lə-ˌse-kənd 

-kənt

: one thousandth of a second

Did you know?

A millisecond isn't long enough for the blink of an eye, but a few milliseconds may determine the winner of a swim race or a hundred-yard dash. With the ever-increasing speed of modern technology, even a millisecond has started to seem a little sluggish; computer operations are now measured in nanoseconds—that is, billionths of a second.

Examples of millisecond in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Then there are terrestrial gamma-ray flashes, or TGF, which are bright enough to see from space and are very fleeting, lasting less than a millisecond. —Rudy Molinek, Smithsonian Magazine, 4 Oct. 2024

That means Starlink can deliver download bandwidth in the hundreds of megabytes and, crucially, latency right down into the tens of milliseconds, rather than the half-second or more that geostationary satellites suffer from. —Barry Collins, Forbes, 22 Oct. 2024

The muscle can close an eyelid in less than 100 milliseconds and reopen it in about 200 milliseconds. —Lindsey Bever, Washington Post, 27 July 2024

In Election Betting Markets After First Presidential Debate Algorithmic Trading AI trading systems can process market data in milliseconds, and execute trades based on complex algorithms. —Sarath Babu Yalavarthi, Forbes, 11 Sep. 2024

Word History

Etymology

International Scientific Vocabulary

First Known Use

1909, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

millisecond

noun

mil·​li·​sec·​ond ˈmil-ə-ˌsek-ənd 

 also  -ənt

: one thousandth of a second

Medical Definition

millisecond

noun

mil·​li·​sec·​ond ˈmil-ə-ˌsek-ənd, -ənt 

: one thousandth of a second

—abbreviation ms, msec