VELOCITY • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Velocity

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/vəlˈɑsəti/ Listen

noun

Velocity n. (pl. velocities)

1.

Quickness of motion; swiftness; speed; celerity; rapidity; as, the velocity of wind; the velocity of a planet or comet in its orbit or course; the velocity of a cannon ball; the velocity of light. Note: In such phrases, velocity is more generally used than celerity. We apply celerity to animals; as, a horse or an ostrich runs with celerity; but bodies moving in the air or in ethereal space move with greater or less velocity, not celerity. This usage is arbitrary, and perhaps not universal.

2.

(Mech.) Rate of motion; the relation of motion to time, measured by the number of units of space passed over by a moving body or point in a unit of time, usually the number of feet passed over in a second. See the Note under Speed.

Angular velocity. See under Angular.

Initial velocity, the velocity of a moving body at starting; especially, the velocity of a projectile as it leaves the mouth of a firearm from which it is discharged.

Relative velocity, the velocity with which a body approaches or recedes from another body, whether both are moving or only one.

Uniform velocity, velocity in which the same number of units of space are described in each successive unit of time.

Variable velocity, velocity in which the space described varies from instant to instant, either increasing or decreasing; in the former case called accelerated velocity, in the latter, retarded velocity; the acceleration or retardation itself being also either uniform or variable.

Virtual velocity. See under Virtual. Note: In variable velocity, the velocity, strictly, at any given instant, is the rate of motion at that instant, and is expressed by the units of space, which, if the velocity at that instant were continued uniform during a unit of time, would be described in the unit of time; thus, the velocity of a falling body at a given instant is the number of feet which, if the motion which the body has at that instant were continued uniformly for one second, it would pass through in the second. The scientific sense of velocity differs from the popular sense in being applied to all rates of motion, however slow, while the latter implies more or less rapidity or quickness of motion.

Synonyms: Swiftness; celerity; rapidity; fleetness; speed.

See images of 'Velocity'

Etymology of 'Velocity'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Velocity" Quotes from Famous Books

... inclination—for instance a stone, which is naturally inclined to be borne downwards, may be thrown upwards; in another way from the manner of tending—for instance a stone may be thrown downwards with greater velocity than ...

— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... experiment to test the hypothesis of anaesthesia. He proceeded as follows (ibid., p. 458): "A disc of black cardboard thirteen inches in diameter, in which a circle of one-eighth inch round holes, one half inch apart, had been punched close to the periphery all around, was made to revolve at such a velocity that, while the light from the holes fused to a bright circle when the eye was at rest, when the eye moved in the direction of the disc's rotation from one fixation point, seen through the fused circle of light, to another one inch distant, three clear-cut round holes were ...

— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... such stress of weather, and with such a burden quite unmanageable, went under, and all aboard her perished; whereas the ship, leaky though she was, and all but full of water, yet, driven by the fury of the tempest, was hurled with prodigious velocity upon the shore of the island of Majorca, and struck it with such force as to embed herself in the sand, perhaps a stone's throw from terra firma, where she remained all night beaten and washed by the sea, but no more to be moved by the ...

— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... year is more disastrous than that of the preceding year, and in the flood of February, 1891, the culminating point of intensity and destructiveness was reached. On this occasion the water rose in some places over 20 feet, with a corresponding broadening in other places, and flowed with such velocity that for several weeks it was impossible to cross the river. As a result of these floods, the grassy banks that once distinguished the river are now but little more than a tradition, while the older terraces, which under normal circumstances would now be safe, are being cut ...

— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff

... Beckenham stand out, and then I find myself among the Chiselhurst memories. The Chiselhurst mansion had "grounds" rather than a mere garden, and there was a gardener's cottage and a little lodge at the gate. The ascendant movement was always far more in evidence there than at Beckenham. The velocity was increasing. ...

— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

Copyright © 2025 Free Translator.org