Acceleration

How to spell acceleration

12 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce acceleration

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does acceleration mean?

1. nounThe process of increasing in speed, or the rate at which speed increases.

Acceleration in a sentence

• The sports car is famous for its rapid acceleration from a standing start.

• Physics students measured the acceleration of the falling weight.

Where does acceleration come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb accelerare, meaning 'to hasten' or 'to quicken', which was formed from the prefix ad- (here softened to ac- before the c, meaning 'to' or 'toward') and the adjective celer, meaning 'swift' or 'rapid'. The Latin noun acceleratio described the act of speeding something up. English took the word in during the late 1500s, partly through French and partly straight from the Latin, and it kept the technical flavour it still has today in physics, where it names the rate at which speed changes. The same celer root survives in 'celerity', a more literary word for swiftness, and that double-c at the start, one from ad- and one beginning celer, is exactly the spot where writers slip and drop a letter. Remembering that ac- plus celer makes the two c's deliberate, not accidental, helps fix the spelling.

How the word is built

• ac- (variant of ad-: to, toward)
• celer (swift)
• -ation (noun of action)