Speed Definition
speed
Wikipedia has articles on: Speed
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English
Etymology
From Middle English spede (“prosperity, good luck, quickness, success”), from Old English spēd (“luck, prosperity, success”), from Proto-Germanic *spōdiz (“prosperity, success”), from Proto-Germanic *spōanan (“to prosper, succeed, be happy”), from Proto-Indo-European *spē-/ *spʰē- (“to prosper, turn out well”). Cognate with Dutch spoed (“speed”), German sputen (“to speed”), Old English spōwan (“to be successful, succeed”).
Pronunciation
Noun
speed (plural speeds)
- the state of moving quickly or the capacity for rapid motion; rapidity
- the rate of motion or action, specifically (mathematics)/(physics) the magnitude of the velocity; the rate distance is traversed in a given time
- (photography) the sensitivity to light of film, plates.
- (slang) any amphetamine drug used as a stimulant, especially illegally, especially methamphetamine
- (archaic) luck, success, prosperity
Synonyms
Usage notes
Units:
- metric:
- metres/meters per second (m/s)
- kilometres/kilometers per hour (km/h)
- nautical:
- knot (kt or kn)
- imperial and U.S. customary:
- aeronautical:
Verb
speed (third-person singular simple present speeds, present participle speeding, simple past and past participle sped (especially US) or speeded (mostly UK))
- (intransitive, archaic) To succeed; to prosper, be lucky.
- 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book I:
- he and alle his knyghtes haue assayed it and none can spede.
- 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, I.2.4.vii:
- Aristotle must find out the motion of Euripus; Pliny must needs see Vesuvius; but how sped they? One loseth goods, another his life.
- 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book I:
- (transitive, archaic) To help someone, to give them fortune.
- God speed, until we meet again.
- (intransitive) To go fast, especially excessively fast.
- The Ferrari was speeding along the road.
- (intransitive) To exceed the speed limit.
- Why do you speed when the road is so icy?
- (transitive) To increase the rate at which something occurs
- 1982 Carole Offir & Carole Wade, Human sexuality, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, p454
- It is possible that the uterine contractions speed the sperm along.
- 2004 James M. Cypher & James L. Dietz, The process of economic development, Routledge, p359
- Such interventions can help to speed the process of reducing CBRs and help countries pass through the demographic transition threshold more quickly [...]
- 1982 Carole Offir & Carole Wade, Human sexuality, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, p454
- (intransitive, slang) To be under the influence of stimulant drugs, especially amphetamines.
Quotations
- For examples of the usage of this term see the citations page.
Usage notes
The Cambridge Guide to English Usage indicates that sped is for objects in motion (the race car sped) while speeded is used for activities or processes, but notes that the British English convention does not hold in American English.
Translations
to go fast
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[source page]
In kinematics, the speed of an object is the magnitude of its velocity (the rate of change of its position); it is thus a scalar quantity. The average speed of an object in an interval of time is the distance traveled by the object divided by the duration of the interval; the instantaneous speed is the limit of the average speed as the duration of the time interval approaches zero .
Speed is the rate of motion, or equivalently the rate of change in position, often expressed as distance d traveled per unit of time t.