millisecond

noun

mil·​li·​sec·​ond ˈmi-lə-ˌse-kənd 

-kənt

: one thousandth of a second

Did you know?

A millisecond isn't long enough for the blink of an eye, but a few milliseconds may determine the winner of a swim race or a hundred-yard dash. With the ever-increasing speed of modern technology, even a millisecond has started to seem a little sluggish; computer operations are now measured in nanoseconds—that is, billionths of a second.

Examples of millisecond in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Trading firms began using low-latency (shorter delay) technology and co-locating servers inside exchange data centers, cutting trade execution times to milliseconds and making speed itself a competitive advantage. — Brian Lund, Encyclopedia Britannica, 4 Sep. 2026

That setup produced an average round-trip processing time of 68 milliseconds. — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 3 Sep. 2026

Like many other high-end EVs, the drive units use silicon-carbide inverters that can respond in less than a millisecond. — Jonathan M. Gitlin, ArsTechnica, 1 Sep. 2026

The brain can identify an image in just 13 milliseconds, according to researchers at MIT. — Goran Paun, Forbes.com, 1 Sep. 2026

Word History

Etymology

International Scientific Vocabulary

First Known Use

1909, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for millisecond

• femtosecond
• microsecond
• nanosecond
• picosecond
• beckoned
• reckoned
• second
• seconde

Kids Definition

millisecond

noun

mil·​li·​sec·​ond ˈmil-ə-ˌsek-ənd 

also -ənt

: one thousandth of a second

Medical Definition

millisecond

noun

mil·​li·​sec·​ond ˈmil-ə-ˌsek-ənd, -ənt 

: one thousandth of a second

—abbreviation ms, msec