nanosecond

noun nano·sec·ond \ ˈna-nə-ˌse-kənd , -kənt \

Updated on: 19 Apr 2018

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

The tempo was on the luxurious side, and after sitting on the first note for a nanosecond, Nézet-Séguin unfolded the rest of the phrase by turning over notes one by one, looking for meaning.

— peter dobrin, Philly.com, "Yannick Nézet-Séguin puts down his Philadelphia Orchestra baton for a night at the keyboard," 12 Apr. 2018
Pure hatred can be delivered directly to your home in a nanosecond.

— frank pallotta, CNN, "Mark Hamill, Rian Johnson on 'Star Wars' haters and critics in the age of social media," 29 Mar. 2018
The qubits remain coherent for 100 microseconds at a time, but the entanglement of a qubit pair can be done in about 10 nanoseconds.

— john timmer, Ars Technica, "Quantum computing’s future is almost semi-here—are we ready for it?," 16 Mar. 2018
Using that approach, Cleland and Kevin Satzinger, a UCSB graduate student, fashioned a resonator on a lithium niobate chip that rang for up to 150 nanoseconds.

— adrian cho, Science | AAAS, "Weird vibrations poised to control quantum computers," 14 Mar. 2018
In about 5 percent of cases, the belt just happens to break during one of those few nanoseconds when none of the valves is fully opened.

— ray magliozzi, sandiegouniontribune.com, "How did engine survive broken timing belt?," 16 Mar. 2018
However, that simple quantum state persisted for just 5 nanoseconds, too little time to put the device into more complex quantum states of motion.

— adrian cho, Science | AAAS, "Weird vibrations poised to control quantum computers," 14 Mar. 2018
The demonstration should confirm that DSAC can maintain time accuracy to better than two nanoseconds (.000000002 seconds) over a day, NASA says.

— joe pappalardo, Popular Mechanics, "The Owner’s Guide To Your New Space Station," 12 Mar. 2018
But in Britten, a nanosecond of hesitation lessens the impact of the music.

— david patrick stearns, Philly.com, "Philly Grammy winner Jennifer Higdon delights Chicago with a new world premiere, coming here soon," 2 Feb. 2018

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.