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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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
First Known Use: 1958
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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