Etymologically
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accelerate

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /əkˈsɛl.əˌɹeɪt/, /ækˈsɛl.əˌɹeɪt/[1]
  • US: /ɪkˈsɛl.əˌɹeɪt/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin accelerātus, the past participle of accelerō (“to hasten, quicken; to make haste”),[2][3][4][5][6] from ad- and celerō (“to hasten”),[3][7][6][8] from celer (“swift”),[3][2][7] which Etymonline derives perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *keli- (“speeding”).[3] Barnhart allows that the English word may have been modelled on Middle French accélérer or be a back-formation from acceleration, but thinks a direct borrowing from Latin more likely.[4] The OED compares French accélérer, recorded from 1327.[2] The same Latin adjective gave celerity.[8][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

To hasten the occurrence of something, to bring it about sooner: in a treatise by Sir Thomas More on words of Holy Scripture (Memorare novissima), which Barnhart dates 1525–30, Merriam-Webster about 1522 and the OED before 1535.[4][5][2] The OED records an adjective accelerate, accelerated, from 1527.[2]

Semantic evolution

From hastening an event the verb passed to increasing the rate of a process (1545, intransitive) and making something move faster:[2] Etymonline dates "make quicker" to the 1590s.[3] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to make quick, to hasten, to quicken motion".[9] The intransitive sense "go faster" is recorded from 1661, in a translation of Galileo, where it also took on the physicist's meaning of a change in velocity;[2] Etymonline dates it to the 1640s.[3] The motoring sense, "to make a vehicle go faster", appears in 1902, the same year as the use for charged particles driven by electric or magnetic fields.[2] In North American education, to accelerate a pupil has meant since 1916 to move them through a course faster than usual,[2] and the noun accelerate, such a pupil, is recorded from 1911.[5]

Timeline

  • 1520s – to hasten the occurrence of.[3][4][5][2]
  • 1527 – adjective, accelerated.[2]
  • 1545 – intransitive, to increase in rate.[2]
  • 1570 – to increase the speed of a process.[2]
  • 1661 – intransitive, to move faster; in physics, to change velocity.[2]
  • 1902 – of a driver, to make a vehicle go faster; in physics, to speed up charged particles.[2]
  • 1916 – to advance a pupil faster than usual.[2]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To go or move faster; to increase speed: The bus accelerated away from the stop.[10][2]
  2. To make something go, happen or develop faster: Warm weather accelerated the thaw.[10][5][2]
  3. To make something happen sooner than expected: The scandal accelerated his resignation.[10][5][2]
  4. In physics, to change the velocity of a body, or to give kinetic energy to a charged particle.[10][2]
  5. To move a student through a course of study faster than usual.[5][2]

Noun

  1. A student who is advanced faster than usual.[5]

Word family

  • accelerative
  • acceleratingly
  • accelerable
  • acceleratedly
  • deaccelerate
  • overaccelerate
  • reaccelerate
  • accelerator
  • accelerando
  • accelerant
  • acceleration
  • accelerograph
  • accelerometer
  • celerity
  • decelerate

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  8. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins