Celerity
Pronunciation
- IPA: /sɪˈlɛɹɪti/
Origin
From Old French celeritee (compare French célérité), from Latin celeritas, from celer ("fast, swift").
Full definition of celerity
Noun
celerity
(uncountable)- 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.â€
“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.
- (oceanography) The speed of individual waves (as opposed to the speed of groups of waves).