megacycle per second
- noun
- /ˈmɛɡəˌsaɪkəl pər ˈsɛkənd/
- Archaic
- The radio station broadcasts at a frequency of 100 megacycles per second.
Examples
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Older equipment manuals often refer to frequencies in megacycles per second instead of megahertz.
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Scientists measured the electromagnetic wave as oscillating at several megacycles per second.
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The radio station broadcasts at a frequency of one megacycle per second.
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Many modern devices operate in the range of several megacycles per second.
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The radio station broadcasts at a frequency of 100 megacycles per second.
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Scientists measured the electromagnetic wave as oscillating at several megacycles per second.
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Older equipment manuals often refer to frequencies in megacycles per second instead of megahertz.
Synonyms
A unit of frequency equal to one million cycles per second
A measure of how often something repeats that equals one million times each second
A unit for measuring radio frequency equal to one million cycles per second used in older radios
A unit of frequency meaning one million cycles in one second
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is fully compositional: 'megacycle' (one million cycles) combined with 'per' + 'second' straightforwardly yields 'one million cycles per second', so the meaning is directly derived from the constituents. Although technical and somewhat dated, the 'X per Y' unit construction is cross-linguistically common and would be transparent to a learner who knows the component words.
Etymology
The term megacycle per second comes from a simple picture: a wave that goes up and down one million times in one second. Each up-and-down is a cycle, so a megacycle is a million cycles per second, which is why megacycle per second means the same as 'megahertz'.