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Webster 1913 Edition
Celerity
Ce-ler′i-ty
,Noun.
[L.
celeritas
, from celer
swiftm speedy: sf. F. célérité
.] Rapidity of motion; quickness; swiftness.
Time, with all its
celerity
, moves slowly to him whose whole employment is to watch its flight. Johnson.
Webster 1828 Edition
Celerity
CELERITY
,Noun.
1.
Rapidity in motion; swiftness; speed; applied most generally to bodies moving on or near the earth; as the celerity of horse or of a fowl. We speak of the velocity of sound or of light, or of a planet in its orbit. This distinction however is not general, nor can the different uses of the two words be precisely defined. We apply celerity rather than velocity to thought; but there seems to be no reason, except usage, why the two words should not be synonymous.2.
An affection of motion by which a movable body runs through a given space in a given time.Definition 2024
celerity
celerity
English
Noun
celerity (usually uncountable, plural celerities)
- (in literary usage) Speed.
- 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, chapter 48:
- The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the other side of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were casting loose the tackles and bands of the boat which swung there.
- 1937, Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman’s Honeymoon, chapter 11:
-
“My parsnip wine is really extra good this year. Dr Jellyfield always takes a glass when he comes—which isn’t very often, I’m pleased to say, because my health is always remarkably good.”
“That will not prevent me from drinking to it,” said Peter, disposing of the parsnip wine with a celerity which might have been due to eagerness but, to Harriet, rather suggested a reluctance to let the draught linger on the palate.
-
- 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, chapter 48:
- (oceanography) The speed of individual waves (as opposed to the speed of groups of waves).
- (hydrology) The speed with which a perturbation to the flow propagates through the flow domain.
- For example, a flood wave moving down a river.
Translations
speed
speed of individual waves
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