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A millisecond isn't long enough for the blink of an eye, but a few milliseconds may determine the winner of a swim race or a hundred-yard dash. With the ever-increasing speed of modern technology, even a millisecond has started to seem a little sluggish; computer operations are now measured in nanoseconds—that is, billionths of a second.
Examples of millisecond in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Using isolated test devices, IBM has determined that coherence is running between one to two milliseconds, and up to four milliseconds in some cases.
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Paul Smith-Goodson, Forbes.com, 10 June 2025
Big-screen gamers can look forward to a 240-Hz refresh rate (when the resolution is bumped down to Full HD), an auto latency mode that can get input lag down to 12 milliseconds, and motion compensation technology.
—New Atlas, 5 June 2025
Musk posted the timeline when talking about his ongoing effort to reduce Starlink latency to under 20 milliseconds.
—Michael Kan, PC Magazine, 2 June 2025
Your average lightning strike lasts about a millisecond.
—Bill Chappell, NPR, 11 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for millisecond
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Paul Smith-Goodson, Forbes.com, 10 June 2025
Big-screen gamers can look forward to a 240-Hz refresh rate (when the resolution is bumped down to Full HD), an auto latency mode that can get input lag down to 12 milliseconds, and motion compensation technology.
—New Atlas, 5 June 2025
Musk posted the timeline when talking about his ongoing effort to reduce Starlink latency to under 20 milliseconds.
—Michael Kan, PC Magazine, 2 June 2025
Your average lightning strike lasts about a millisecond.
—Bill Chappell, NPR, 11 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for millisecond
Cite this Entry
“Millisecond.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/millisecond. Accessed 18 Jun. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
millisecond
noun
mil·li·sec·ond
ˈmil-ə-ˌsek-ənd 
also -ənt
: one thousandth of a second
Medical Definition
millisecond
noun
mil·li·sec·ond
ˈmil-ə-ˌsek-ənd, -ənt
: one thousandth of a second
—abbreviation ms, msec
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