nanosecond

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

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

One is a dense network of seismographs that feed into a mainframe computer, which can take all the information and within nanoseconds understand that an earthquake is starting.

— simon worrall, National Geographic, "Earthquakes Can Happen in More Places Than You Think," 26 Aug. 2017
And that can change in a nanosecond, like some waterfall that suddenly shifts from one vivid shade to another?

— david patrick stearns, Philly.com, "Ching-Yun Hu opens concert series in mighty wrestle with Rachmaninoff," 9 Aug. 2017
At the same time, a conductor must anticipate what comes next and signal the cues a nanosecond ahead of time.

— mark swed, latimes.com, "When Dennis Prager conducts Santa Monica Symphony, there's no avoiding politics," 8 Aug. 2017
The researchers showed that this sound wave persists for some 5 to 20 nanoseconds, depending on the acoustic frequency.

— chris lee, Ars Technica, "Tiny pillars put light and sound in a quantum superposition," 27 July 2017
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).

— jason daley, Smithsonian, "Now You Too Can Own a Piece of Space History," 22 May 2017
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.

— da'shan smith, Billboard, "Miley Cyrus Crashes 'The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon' (In A Panda Costume)," 18 May 2017
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.

— alex ritman, The Hollywood Reporter, "Jesse Eisenberg, Alexander Skarsgard Tapped for Drama 'Hummingbird Project'," 8 May 2017
In a nanosecond, Arenado reached out, caught the ball in his bare right hand and threw it to first base.

— patrick saunders, The Denver Post, "Rockies’ defense, paced by Nolan Arenado’s magic, becoming a team strength," 1 May 2017

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.