Definition of nanosecond
1 : one billionth of a second
2 : a very brief moment
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Examples of nanosecond in a Sentence
It happens in less than a nanosecond.
a nanosecond was about all that it took her to accept his marriage proposal
Recent Examples of nanosecond from the Web
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And this wave of radiation is the basis for measurement for the rest of the plaque: The radiation lasts 0.7 nanoseconds (basis for time) and extends roughly 21 centimeters (basis for length).
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About a nanosecond after Jimmy Fallon pulled a Panda Express joke out of his hat on The Tonight Show (May 17), the in-house band cued up jubilant music for the arrival of a dancing panda.
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Jesse Eisenberg and Alexander Skarsgard are to topline The Hummingbird Project, an upcoming drama set in the high-stakes world of high frequency trading, where winning is measured in nanoseconds.
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In a nanosecond, Arenado reached out, caught the ball in his bare right hand and threw it to first base.
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In less than a week—a nanosecond in the timeline of museum bureaucracy—the Whitney had made the change.
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Asked about the notion of somehow teaming up with superfriends Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade, both due for free agency next summer, Anthony let the idea percolate for a nanosecond.
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A femtosecond is a millionth of a nanosecond, which in turn is a billionth of a second.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'nanosecond.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Did You Know?
The nonserious use of nanosecond is probably much more common than the proper technical use. In measurement terms such as nanosecond, nanogram, and nanometer, nano- means "billionth;" in other kinds of words, its meaning isn't quite so precise. In computers, the speed of reading and writing to random access memory (RAM) is measured in nanoseconds. By comparison, the speed of reading or writing to a hard drive or a CD-ROM player, or for information to travel over the Internet, is measured in milliseconds (thousandths of a second), which are a million times longer than nanoseconds.
Origin and Etymology of nanosecond
International Scientific Vocabulary
NANOSECOND Defined for English Language Learners
nanosecond
playDefinition of nanosecond for English Language Learners
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: one billionth of a second
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: a very short time
Medical Dictionary
nanosecond
playMedical Definition of nanosecond
: one billionth of a second—abbreviation ns, nsec
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