Accelerate

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /əkˈsɛl.əˌɹeɪt/

Definitions

1. To cause something to move faster or increase its speed ; to make an event or process occur earlier than planned
2. To raise the rate of movement or progress of something ; to bring about an earlier occurrence of an action or event
3. To increase the velocity or tempo of an activity or motion ; to advance the timing of a development or change

Etymology: The verb has a neat internal logic. Its core is Latin "celer", meaning "quick", and the prefix "ad-", meaning "to" or "toward", combined into "accelerare", "to hasten". Put together, the word literally describes moving toward quickness, which is exactly what a car does when its driver presses the pedal. English first recorded the verb in the 1520s, and it may have been formed in one of two ways. It could have come straight from the Latin past participle "accelerātus", with the English "-ate" ending mirroring the Latin form. Alternatively, it could be a back-formation: English speakers may have already been using the noun "acceleration" and then worked backward to create a verb from it. Dictionaries cannot settle which path was taken, so both remain possible. The root "celer" is also the source of "celerity", a formal word for swiftness, which is a close relative in English. Accelerate and celerity share the same Latin stem, so they are cousins that took different routes into the language.

Synonyms: speed up, hasten, quicken, expedite, increase

Antonyms: decelerate, slow down, reduce, diminish, decrease