Latency

How to spell latency

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce latency

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does latency mean?

1. nounThe delay between an action or request and the response it produces, especially in computing and networks.
2. nounThe state of existing but being hidden, inactive, or not yet developed.

Latency in a sentence

• High latency on the connection made the video call stutter badly.

• The virus can remain in a state of latency for years before symptoms appear.

• Gamers prefer a server with low latency for instant responses.

• The disease has a long period of latency in many patients.

Where does latency come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb latere, which literally meant 'to lie hidden' or 'to be concealed'. From that verb came the present participle latens, latentem, meaning 'lying hidden', which gave English the adjective 'latent' in the 1600s for something present but not yet visible or active. The noun 'latency' was formed by adding the suffix -cy, which turns a quality into an abstract state, so the word names the condition of remaining hidden or dormant. In the twentieth century the word found a busy second life in psychology, medicine, and especially computing, where it came to mean the delay between a stimulus and a response, or between a request and the data arriving. The single 'c' before -cy is the spelling point to watch, since the ending sounds like 'see' yet is never written with a double letter.

How the word is built

• laten- (from Latin latere: to lie hidden)
• -cy (noun-forming suffix denoting a state or quality)