bandwidth

noun

band·​width ˈband-ˌwidth 

-ˌwitth

1

: a range within a band of wavelengths, frequencies, or energies

especially : a range of radio frequencies which is occupied by a modulated carrier wave, which is assigned to a service, or over which a device can operate

2

: the capacity for data transfer of an electronic communications system

Graphics consume more bandwidth than text does.

especially : the maximum data transfer rate of such a system

a bandwidth of 100 megabits per second

3

: the emotional or mental capacity necessary to do or consider something

I don't have the bandwidth to do it all myself, and I feel like a failure because I'm not living up to my own ideals.

—Frances Lefkowitz

Examples of bandwidth in a Sentence

The modem has a bandwidth of 56 kilobits per second.

Graphics use more bandwidth than text does.

Recent Examples on the Web

Mind your business and your bandwidth. —Dossé-Via Trenou, Refinery29, 28 Nov. 2025

Ross Duffer, the co-showrunner of the series, says the streaming service is expanding its bandwidth by 30 percent in anticipation of the premiere. —Wesley Stenzel, Entertainment Weekly, 26 Nov. 2025

Although Starlink's downlink speeds reach up to 250 Mbps, the bandwidth gets diluted as the number of users grows. —Tereza Pultarova, Space.com, 24 Nov. 2025

That means the 4x performance gains cannot be carried over to the entire prompt, but Apple still saw an overall LLM performance improvement between 19% and 27% across various models with M5, compared with its M4 hardware, thanks to its greater memory bandwidth. —PC Magazine, 22 Nov. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1913, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

bandwidth

noun

band·​width ˈband-ˌwidth 

1

: a range of frequencies

2

: the capacity for or rate of data transfer

a high bandwidth Internet connection