momentum
noun
Simple meaning
Energy and speed that keeps something going.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
mohmehntuhmSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
moʊˈmɛntəm
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
physics
An impelling force or strength
“The car's momentum carried it off the road.”
physics
The product of a body's mass and its velocity
“The momentum of the particles was deduced from meteoritic velocities.”
physics
Strength or force gained by motion or movement.
physics
The impetus, either of a body in motion, or of an idea or course of events; a moment.
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: An impelling force or strength
Used this way, momentum is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a scientific use: it names something precisely within a field of study, so it appears in research and teaching more than in conversation.
“The car's momentum carried it off the road.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Science
- Academic writing
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
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.
Impelling / strengthnoun
“The car's momentum carried it off the road.”
Productnoun
“The momentum of the particles was deduced from meteoritic velocities.”
More ways to use momentum
- “The car's momentum carried it off the road.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The product of the momentum of a rotating body and its distance from the axis of rotation.
The principle that the total linear momentum in a closed system is constant and is not affected by processes occurring inside the system.
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What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
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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.