Skip to main content
millisecond

millisecond

26 2.5
A unit of time equal to one thousandth of a second
  • noun
  • /ˈmɪlɪˌsɛkənd/
translation icon : milisegundo
  • It took only a millisecond for the computer to process the command.
  • 10 milliseconds
  • hundred milliseconds
  • few milliseconds

And if I go swimming, I can picture for half a millisecond.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • And, and today, oh, right now, we're in the final millisecond of the last minute of the last day, December 31st.

  • And in a millisecond I decided to stand my ground, so when the bomb went off, the camera was to my eye, and I caught the explosion in stop frames.

  • Do you know that people make a first impression in a millisecond with their body language?

  • And his job is to stay relaxed so he has an extra, you know, millisecond of options.

  • "It takes 13 milliseconds for the human brain "to send a message to the body.

  • The greatest energy transfer takes place during the first 10 milliseconds of exposure.

    Academic text (1996)
  • I wanted to stay forever, but every millisecond I stayed increased the possibility of disrupting the timeline.

    Fiction book (1998)
  • Compared to the accuracy of pulsar timing measurements, a millisecond is a huge amount of time.

    Academic text (1995)
  • And so your decision making of when you're going to hit that lip to catch air or to do a big turn, it all happens maybe a millisecond before you get there.

  • This radioactive piece of Trinitite, therefore, is a tangible time stamp of the millisecond that we entered the nuclear age.

Synonyms

msec
vsmillisecond
  • Specialized
1 3.9

One thousandth of a second

is the full written form spelled out rather than the abbreviation

How Long

second
  • Specialized
1.0
millisecond
26 2.5
microsecond
  • Specialized
11 3.6
nanosecond
  • Specialized
20 4.5
picosecond
  • Specialized
1 8.0
femtosecond
  • Specialized
1 9.7
attosecond
  • Specialized
1 9.9

Surface Forms

millisecond singular
milliseconds plural

Morphology

millisecond = second (transparent) = milli + second + milli

The SI prefix 'milli-' meaning one thousandth attached to the ordinary time unit 'second' yields a directly derivable meaning.

Etymology

The word millisecond comes from the part milli-, from Latin mille which means 'thousand', and from second, the time unit. Think of it like millimeter for time: a millisecond is like cutting one second into 1000 tiny pieces, which is why it means 'one thousandth of a second'.