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

Those are disciplines my agency built and refined over decades of work—not inherited or downloaded in a millisecond. — Adam Taylor, Forbes.com, 17 July 2026

The new car uses in-wheel motors, enabling precise management by sophisticated torque vectoring to alter power left and right every 10 milliseconds. — New Atlas, 15 July 2026

The bursts last a few milliseconds to a few hundred seconds, and are thought to be caused by the merger of two neutron stars (the short bursts), or the collapse of large stars, creating a black hole (the long ones). — Jeffrey Kluger, Time, 2 July 2026

Called the Lorimer Burst, after the team leader who discovered it, the flash was far more luminous than anything ever seen like it, and, still more astonishing, the entire event lasted only about 5 milliseconds. — Phil Plait, Scientific American, 26 June 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