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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
Gamers can look forward to expansive scenes with a dedicated ALLM gaming mode for less than 20 milliseconds of input lag over HDMI.
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New Atlas, 12 Jan. 2026
Using high-speed sensors, the system scans the road surface up to 500 times per second and can adjust damping as often as 200 times per second, reacting within milliseconds.
—Bojan Stojkovski, Interesting Engineering, 11 Jan. 2026
The two planets, roughly four times the size of Earth, were discovered to be orbiting around a millisecond pulsar star named PSR B1257+12, which is 2,300 light-years away.
—Lorenzino Estrada, AZCentral.com, 9 Jan. 2026
The time between the first shot and second shot is 399 milliseconds, with 299 milliseconds between the second and third shots, ABC News' analysis shows.
—Chris Looft, ABC News, 8 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for millisecond
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New Atlas, 12 Jan. 2026
Using high-speed sensors, the system scans the road surface up to 500 times per second and can adjust damping as often as 200 times per second, reacting within milliseconds.
—Bojan Stojkovski, Interesting Engineering, 11 Jan. 2026
The two planets, roughly four times the size of Earth, were discovered to be orbiting around a millisecond pulsar star named PSR B1257+12, which is 2,300 light-years away.
—Lorenzino Estrada, AZCentral.com, 9 Jan. 2026
The time between the first shot and second shot is 399 milliseconds, with 299 milliseconds between the second and third shots, ABC News' analysis shows.
—Chris Looft, ABC News, 8 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for millisecond
Cite this Entry
“Millisecond.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/millisecond. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
Copy CitationKids 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
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