Milliwatt

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A unit of electrical or mechanical power equal to one thousandth of a watt, commonly used to measure low-power outputs in electronics and communications
2. A metric unit of power measurement equivalent to 0.001 watts, frequently applied to describe the power consumption of small devices and signal transmission
3. A thousandth part of a watt used as a standard measure of power in applications ranging from radio signals to battery-powered equipment

Etymology: A milliwatt is a thousandth of a watt, and its name is a simple stacking of two parts: the metric prefix "milli-", from Latin "mille" meaning "thousand," placed in front of "watt," the unit of power named after the Scottish engineer James Watt. The prefix carries the sense of division by a thousand, so the unit measures one-thousandth of that base power. The key point is that the name was built from existing pieces rather than coined as a single new word. Watt gave his name to the unit of power, and the decimal prefix system supplied the rest. Because the prefix is attached to the unit name, the whole term works the same way as other metric compounds such as "milligram" or "millimetre."

Synonyms: mW