Momentum

How to spell momentum

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce momentum

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does momentum mean?

1. nounThe strength or impetus a process gains as it continues, making it easier to keep going.
2. nounIn physics, the quantity of motion of a moving body, equal to its mass multiplied by its velocity.

Momentum in a sentence

• The campaign lost momentum once the funding dried up.

• The collision transferred momentum from the truck to the smaller car.

• A string of early sales gave the new product real momentum.

• In a closed system the total momentum stays constant.

Where does momentum come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes straight from the Latin momentum, which was a worn-down form of an earlier movimentum, built on the verb movere meaning 'to move'. In Latin it literally described a 'movement' or the small impulse needed to set something going, and it even named the tiny weight that could tip the balance of a set of scales. From that idea of a decisive nudge it also came to mean 'importance' or 'consequence', which is why the related English word 'moment' carries the sense of a significant point in time. English took momentum directly in its Latin form during the 1600s, first as a term in physics for the quantity of motion in a moving body, and the spelling kept the classical -um ending intact. The same movere root powers a whole family of English words such as 'move', 'motion', 'motor' and 'promote', and remembering that root helps fix the single m in the middle rather than a doubled one.

How the word is built

• mo- (from movere: to move)
• -mentum (Latin noun suffix denoting a means or result)