Word.ws English Dictionary

accelerate

UK/əkˈsɛl.əˌɹeɪt//ɪkˈsɛl.əˌɹeɪt/

accelerate verb: to cause to move faster; to quicken the motion of; to add to the speed of.

Verb

accelerate (third-person singular simple present accelerates, present participle accelerating, simple past and past participle accelerated)

  1. (transitive) To cause to move faster; to quicken the motion of; to add to the speed of.
    Synonyms:
    hasten, expedite, further
  2. (transitive) To quicken the natural or ordinary progression or process of.
    • to accelerate the growth of a plant, the increase of wealth, etc.
    • The company plans to accelerate its growth with new marketing strategies.
  3. (transitive) To cause a change of velocity.
  4. (transitive) To hasten, as the occurrence of an event.
    • to accelerate our departure
    Synonyms:
    advance, forward
  5. (transitive) To enable a student to finish a course of study in less than normal time.
  6. (intransitive) To become faster; to begin to move more quickly.
    • The car began to accelerate as soon as the light turned green.
  7. (intransitive) Grow; increase.

Adjective

accelerate (not comparable)

  1. (archaic) Accelerated; quickened; hastened; hurried.
    • ... a general knowledg of the definition of motion, and of the distinction of natural and violent, even and accelerate, and the like, sufficing.1662, Thomas Salusbury, Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Dialogue 2

accelerate meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

accelerate in Hindi

गति का बढ़ना, किसी वस्तु, चाल बढ़ाना, शीघ्रता करना, तेज़, तीव्र करना

accelerate in Tamil

துரிதப்படுத்து, வேகமெழுப்பு, முடுக்கி விடு, முடுக்கு

accelerate in Urdu

چال بڑھانا, رفتار تیز کرنا

accelerate in Bengali

দ্রুততর করা, ত্বরান্বিত করা, গতি বৃদ্ধি করা
More languagesFewer languages
accelerate in Telugu
వేగవంతం
accelerate in Malayalam
കുതിക്കുക kutikkuka
accelerate in Kannada
ಚುರುಕಾಗು, ವೇಗವನ್ನು ಹೆಚ್ಚಿಸು, ತ್ವರೆಗೊಳಿಸು, ಚುರುಕುಗೊಳಿಸು
accelerate in Sanskrit
चोदयति codayati
accelerate in Tagalog
ibilis, darasigin
accelerate in Arabic
سَرَّعَ sarraʕa, اِسْتَعْجَلَ istaʕjala, أَسْرَعَ ʔasraʕa
accelerate in Indonesian
mempercepat, mempercepatkan, mengakselerasikan
accelerate in Persian
شتافتن šetâftan
accelerate in Thai
เร่ง reng
accelerate in Vietnamese
tăng tốc

Examples of accelerate in a sentence

  • New space telescopes may accelerate the search for other earths that may be out there.
  • They hermetically sealed the kettles to accelerate the cooking.
  • The involvement of men’s clubs is, probably, necessary to accelerate the game’s growth.

All 36 example sentences with accelerate

Synonyms of accelerate

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of accelerate

Forms of accelerate

third-person singular presentaccelerates
present participleaccelerating
past participleaccelerated
pastaccelerated

Past tense of accelerate: accelerated

Origin of accelerate

First attested in the 1520s. Either from Latin accelerātus, perfect passive participle of accelerō (“to accelerate, hasten”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), formed from ad + celerō (“to hasten”), which is from celer (“quick”) (see celerity), or back-formation from acceleration.

Words formed from accelerate

Questions about accelerate

What does accelerate mean?
Accelerate means to cause to move faster; to quicken the motion of; to add to the speed of.
What is accelerate in Hindi?
Accelerate in Hindi is गति का बढ़ना, किसी वस्तु, चाल बढ़ाना. See Accelerate meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is accelerate?
Accelerate can be a verb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce accelerate?
Accelerate is pronounced /əkˈsɛl.əˌɹeɪt/ (UK).
What is the past tense of accelerate?
The past tense of accelerate is accelerated.

Words near accelerate in the dictionary

  1. accelerandos
  2. accelerans
  3. accelerant
  4. accelerants
  5. acceleratable
  6. accelerate
  7. accelerated
  8. accelerated ageing
  9. accelerated aging
  10. accelerated critical illness
  11. accelerated depreciation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: accelerate (page history and authors); accelerate (Hindi Wiktionary) (page history and authors); accelerate (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); accelerate (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); accelerate (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); accelerate (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); കുതിക്കുക (Malayalam) (page history and authors); accelerate (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); चोदयति (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-accelerate.ogg.

Cite this entry: “accelerate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/accelerate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.