bandwidth

American  

[band-width, -with] / ˈbændˌwɪdθ, -ˌwɪθ /

noun

• bandwidths
  plural

1. Telecommunications. the smallest range of frequencies constituting a band within which a particular signal can be transmitted without distortion.

2. Digital Technology. the transmission capacity of an electronic communications device or system; the speed of data transfer.

   a high-bandwidth internet connection.

3. mental capacity; intelligence.

   Don't listen to him—he has really low bandwidth.

4. a person's capacity to handle or think about more than one thing at the same time.

   He doesn't have the bandwidth to make those kinds of decisions.

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bandwidth British  

/ ˈbændˌwɪdθ /

noun

1. the range of frequencies within a given waveband used for a particular transmission

2. the range of frequencies over which a receiver or amplifier should not differ by more than a specified amount

3. the range of frequencies used in a specific telecommunications signal

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bandwidth Scientific  

/ bănd′wĭdth′,-wĭth′ /

1. The numerical difference between the upper and lower frequencies of a band of electromagnetic radiation, especially an assigned range of radio frequencies.

2. The amount of data that can be passed along a communications channel in a given period of time. For analog devices, such as standard telephones, bandwith is the range of frequencies that can be transmitted and is expressed in hertz (cycles per second). For digital devices, bandwidth is measured in bits per second. The wider the bandwidth, the faster data can be sent.

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bandwidth Cultural  

1. The amount of data that can be carried by a digital communication medium, often expressed in hertz.

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Discover More

Within the radio and microwave portions of the electromagnetic spectrum limited bandwidth is available, and in the United States the use of the spectrum is regulated and allocated by the FCC. (See VHF and UHF.)

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• bandwidths
  plural

Etymology

Origin of bandwidth

First recorded in 1925–30; band ² + width

Explanation

Bandwidth tells us how much data can flow through an internet connection at one time, and it also describes how much mental energy a person has to handle different tasks. Think of bandwidth as a pipe: the bigger it is, the more it can handle flowing through it. In technology, bandwidth is a measurement that determines things like how fast you can stream a movie or download a file. On a personal level, bandwidth also refers to your mental ability to handle tasks and deal with stress. Just as a network might get overwhelmed and slow down if there’s too much data to handle, our minds can also feel overloaded when too much is going on.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bandwidth bandwidths

All told, the improvements have generated a 50% improvement in memory bandwidth, the widest it has ever shipped in an iPhone, the company says at its fall product showcase.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026

"If several of those cables were cut simultaneously, either accidentally or deliberately, a bulk of India's westward bandwidth to West Asia, Africa and Europe would be impacted."

From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026

“While driving, there just isn’t enough mental bandwidth left to worry about the stressful things in life.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026

“As AI compute workloads increase in both speed and bandwidth, data-center architects are turning to optical links as a primary means of connectivity,” he said.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 11, 2026

Mamou’s picture kept freezing and unfreezing, occasionally turning into chunky blocks as the bandwidth fluctuated.

From "Darius the Great Is Not Okay" by Adib Khorram

SCHWEIZER: We finished 2025 with more BCGers than we started; we continue to recruit, promote and elect to partner in relatively normal bandwidths.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026

The results showed that in almost all cases, measured bandwidths were higher than predictions by widely used models of the galaxy, highlighting a need for updates to current ISM density models.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 26, 2024

They put deadlines on when certain bandwidths are going to be cut off.

From The Verge ● Feb. 8, 2019

Both moves anticipated—or precipitated—larger shifts in the technology industry; greater onboard computer storage and higher internet bandwidths and speeds eventually allowed for cloud storage and streaming media options.

From Slate ● May 28, 2018

In a lot of the images some of the bandwidths are missing.

From Color Images from Mars Rovers by Bob Webster