acceleration
noun
Simple meaning
Increasing the speed.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
aksuhlerayshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
æksɛlɚˈeɪʃən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The act of accelerating; increasing the speed
uncountable
The act of accelerating, or the state of being accelerated; increase of motion or action; as opposed to retardation or deceleration.
countable
The amount by which a speed or velocity increases (and so a scalar quantity or a vector quantity).
physics
The change of velocity with respect to time (can include deceleration or changing direction).
The advancement of students at a rate that places them ahead of where they would be in the regular school curriculum.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The act of accelerating; increasing the speed
'Acceleration' is the noun form of 'accelerate,' referring to the act of speeding up or the rate at which something speeds up. In physics, it's a precise term for the change in velocity over time, even slowing down.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where you'll really hear it
Physics class
“Gravity causes a constant acceleration on falling objects.”
Car advertisement
“This sports car boasts impressive acceleration from 0 to 60 mph.”
Project update
“We've seen an acceleration in project completion over the last month.”
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use acceleration
- “Modern science caused an acceleration of cultural change.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Rate
Increase
Other combinations
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A unit for measuring acceleration.
The rate of change of the angular velocity of a rotating body.
The acceleration toward the center that holds a satellite in elliptical orbit.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
An instrument for measuring the acceleration of aircraft or rockets.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Antonyms
Sense: accelerating
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.