duration
noun
Simple meaning
The time when something continues.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
duurayshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdʊˈɹeɪʃən
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 period of time during which something continues
“The duration of the movie was exactly two hours and fifteen minutes.”
The property of enduring or continuing in time
An amount of time or a particular time interval.
Continuance in time
“The ceremony was of short duration.”
in the singularnot followed by "of"
The time taken for the current situation to end, especially the current war.
finance
A measure of the sensitivity of the price of a financial asset to changes in interest rates, computed for a simple bond as a weighted average of the maturities of the interest and principal payments associated with it.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The period of time during which something continues
Used this way, duration is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“The duration of the movie was exactly two hours and fifteen minutes.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Usage note
It most often appears in the pattern “duration of …”, which is worth copying when you use it.
Natural pattern: duration of …
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
How It’s Used
The word’s distinct uses, one example each.
Periodnoun
“The duration of the movie was exactly two hours and fifteen minutes.”
Continuancenoun
“The ceremony was of short duration.”
More ways to use duration
- “The ceremony was of short duration.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: period of time during which something continues
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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.