Rapidity Meaning
/ɹəˈpɪd.ɪ.ti/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounspeed, swiftness; the condition of being rapid
nounA measure of velocity relative to the speed of light; defined as artanh(v), where artanh is the hyperbolic arctangent, and v = speed (with c = speed of light = 1).
Sentence Examples
I was pleased with the rapidity with which he mastered Japanese.
Rapidity of rise may be inversely proportional to duration at altitude.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The surprising ____ of the car's acceleration shocked all the race spectators.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The ____ with which the disease spread through the population alarmed health authorities worldwide.
Word Origin & History
From rapid + -ity, from French rapidité, from Latin rapiditas.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Although appreciating the rapidity and frequency of the Southern electric services I was now to use on short journeys, I became more than ever convinced that electric traction offers very little of interest to the dyed-in-the-wool railwayist."
— 1944 November and December, Talisman, “A Broadening Horizon”, in Railway Magazine, page 340:
"In clinical practice, the generation of diagnostic hypotheses occurs especially readily and rapidly in subdisciplines such as dermatology, where gross appearance of lesions is of particular importance diagnostically[…]. The primacy of macroscopy in paleopathology means that the activation of skeletal disease scripts occurs with similar facility and rapidity when skeletal remains are examined."
— 2023, Simon Mays, “The Macroscopic Study of Human Skeletal Paleopathology” (chapter 2), in The Routledge Handbook of Paleopathology, Routledge, →DOI, →ISBN, pages 25–26:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The surprising ____ of the car's acceleration shocked all the race spectators.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The ____ with which the disease spread through the population alarmed health authorities worldwide.