centripetal acceleration

7.0

A change in an object's movement that makes it move toward the centre when it follows a curve

noun
/sɛnˈtrɪpɪtəl ˌækˌsɛləˈreɪʃən/

Specialized

: aceleración centrípeta

As the roller coaster descends and turns sharply, riders experience strong centripetal acceleration directed towards the center of the ride's path.

Examples

So when you when you slide down the rods to that new position is, has that centripetal acceleration gone up or down?
When a car makes a sharp turn, the passengers feel the effects of centripetal acceleration pulling them towards the inside of the curve.
To keep the satellite in orbit, it must maintain a specific centripetal acceleration toward the Earth to counteract the gravitational force.

Surface Forms

centripetal acceleration singular

centripetal accelerations plural

Morphology

centripetal + acceleration

The noun phrase is transparently built from 'centripetal' (directed toward a rotation center) + 'acceleration' (change in velocity), so its meaning — acceleration directed toward the center of curvature — is directly inferable from the constituents. This is a regular adjective+noun technical composition (and has close parallels in many languages), so a learner who knows both constituent meanings will understand the MWE.

Etymology

Centripetal acceleration comes from the picture of something moving in a circle while being pulled inward, like a stone on a string that is always pulled toward the middle. The word centripetal points to moving toward the center, so the phrase means the acceleration that keeps an object turning by pulling it 'toward the center'.