From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Acceleration \Ac*cel'er*a"tion\, noun [L. acceleratio: cf. F. acc['e]l['e]ration.] The act of accelerating, or the state of being accelerated; increase of motion or action; as, a falling body moves toward the earth with an acceleration of velocity; -- opposed to {retardation}.
A period of social improvement, or of intellectual advancement, contains within itself a principle of acceleration. --I. Taylor. (Astr. & Physics.)
{Acceleration of the moon}, the increase of the moon's mean motion in its orbit, in consequence of which its period of revolution is now shorter than in ancient times.
{Acceleration} and {retardation of the tides}. See {Priming of the tides}, under {Priming}.
{Diurnal acceleration of the fixed stars}, the amount by which their apparent diurnal motion exceeds that of the sun, in consequence of which they daily come to the meridian of any place about three minutes fifty-six seconds of solar time earlier than on the day preceding.
{Acceleration of the planets}, the increasing velocity of their motion, in proceeding from the apogee to the perigee of their orbits.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
noun
1: an increase in speed; "modern science caused an acceleration of cultural change" [ant: {deceleration}]
2: the act of accelerating; increasing the speed [syn: {quickening}, {speedup}]
3: (physics) a rate of change of velocity
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
40 Moby Thesaurus words for "acceleration": accelerando, aggravation, beefing-up, blowing up, blowup, concentration, condensation, consolidation, deepening, double time, double-quick, double-quick time, drive, enhancement, exacerbation, exaggeration, explosion, festination, forced march, forwarding, getaway, hastening, heating-up, heightening, hurrying, impetus, information explosion, intensification, magnification, pickup, population explosion, quickening, redoubling, reinforcement, speeding, speedup, step-up, strengthening, thrust, tightening
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