milliwatt

noun

mil·​li·​watt ˈmi-lə-ˌwät 

: one thousandth of a watt

Examples of milliwatt in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

An onboard electronic control system delivers up to 500 volts to each of those actuators at a power of just 500 milliwatts. —Ben Coxworth, New Atlas, 23 Feb. 2025

But 200 milliwatts per square meter is not a lot of juice: enough to charge a mobile phone, maybe, or keep an LED nightlight going—or, perhaps, serve as a power source for sensors or irrigation switches. —IEEE Spectrum, 25 June 2024

The company also demonstrated a custom chip that handled an even larger logical qubit, while only occupying a tiny fraction of a square millimeter and consuming just 8 milliwatts of power. —John Timmer, Ars Technica, 9 July 2024

Lasers sold for pointing purposes legally can’t exceed 5 milliwatts. —Catherine Allen, NBC News, 31 Jan. 2024

That will mean a significant jump in laser power compared to the 250 milliwatts or so needed for Quera's current hardware. —John Timmer, Ars Technica, 9 Jan. 2024

Apple silicon can reduce idle power draw to as little as 200 milliwatts. —IEEE Spectrum, 9 Nov. 2023

So little power, in fact, just to be on an event camera consumes one milliwatt, on average, because in fact, the power consumption depends on the dynamics of the scene. —IEEE Spectrum, 3 Oct. 2023

Whereas other techniques demand an operating power of roughly 1.5 to 4 watts, the new method requires only an average power of 400 milliwatts to operate 2,000 foci. —IEEE Spectrum, 7 Apr. 2023

Word History

Etymology

International Scientific Vocabulary

First Known Use

circa 1914, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for milliwatt

• aeronaut
• aforethought
• afterthought
• apricot
• argonaut
• astronaut
• camelot
• coffeepot
• concordat
• cosmonaut
• entrepot
• flowerpot

Medical Definition

milliwatt

noun

mil·​li·​watt ˈmil-ə-ˌwät 

: one thousandth of a watt

—abbreviation mW