accelerate
Americanverb (used with object)
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accelerates,
present (3rd person singular)
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accelerated,
past participle, past
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accelerating
present participle
-
to cause faster or greater activity, development, progress, advancement, etc., in.
to accelerate economic growth.
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to hasten the occurrence of.
to accelerate the fall of a government.
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Mechanics. to change the velocity of (a body) or the rate of (motion); cause to undergo acceleration.
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to reduce the time required for (a course of study) by intensifying the work, eliminating detail, etc.
verb (used without object)
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accelerates,
present (3rd person singular)
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accelerated,
past participle, past
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accelerating
present participle
-
to move or go faster; increase in speed.
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to progress or develop faster.
verb
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to go, occur, or cause to go or occur more quickly; speed up
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(tr) to cause to happen sooner than expected
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(tr) to increase the velocity of (a body, reaction, etc); cause acceleration
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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overaccelerateverb
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reaccelerateverb
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accelerableadjective
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accelerativeadjective
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self-acceleratingadjective
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unacceleratedadjective
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acceleratedlyadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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acceleratesimple
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acceleratessimple
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have acceleratedperfect
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has acceleratedperfect
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am acceleratingprogressive
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are acceleratingprogressive
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is acceleratingprogressive
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have been acceleratingperfect progressive
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has been acceleratingperfect progressive
Past
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acceleratedsimple
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had acceleratedperfect
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was acceleratingprogressive
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were acceleratingprogressive
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had been acceleratingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of accelerate
First recorded in 1515–25; from Latin accelerātus “sped up,” past participle of accelerāre “to speed up,” from ac- ac- + celerāre “to hasten, hurry” (from celer “swift”)
Explanation
Accelerate means to speed up. A car accelerates when you step on the gas. You can accelerate the process of getting a visa if you happen to know someone who works in the consulate. The fastest Amtrak trains are called the Acela line, a made-up word intended to suggest accelerate and therefore communicate that these trains are fast. If you are standing close to one when it zooms by, you may find yourself having an accelerated heart rate — they move pretty fast!
Vocabulary lists containing accelerate
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
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Holes
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Commonly Misspelled Words, List 2
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
James Hardie said the divestiture is expected to strengthen its balance sheet, accelerate deleveraging and improve its margin profile and return on invested capital.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
If present water use patterns do not change, groundwater depletion could accelerate further, increasing the threat to agricultural areas downstream that depend on these reserves.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 20, 2026
Its momentum could carry on for years, as U.S. manufacturing activity and data-center construction continue to accelerate.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 19, 2026
The municipality is not waiting to find out, instead seeking to accelerate its economic diversification, hoping to find new areas of growth beyond the Opel plants.
From Barron's ● Aug. 16, 2026
We finally taxied out to the runway and the pilot said, Flight attendants, prepare for departure, and then two tremendous jet engines roared to life and we began to accelerate.
From "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green
Moderna’s breakthrough highlights a broader transformation, as AI accelerates the clinical development of therapies at a pace that would have seemed unimaginable a few years ago.
From Barron's ● Aug. 21, 2026
So some analysts think interest rates may not rise this year - but there are still risks they do, especially if inflation accelerates by an unexpected amount.
From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2026
It comes as the group sees its server solutions optimized for artificial intelligence fuelling future revenue as the build-out of data centers accelerates.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 12, 2026
Elevated cortisol raises the risk of heart disease, cognitive decline and accelerates biological aging.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 18, 2026
“It’s an earlier version of that salve they put on your shoulder--it accelerates the growth of new cells.”
From "Insurgent" by Veronica Roth
While return procedures are accelerated, the government will continue to provide humanitarian assistance to those who seek asylum or are unaccompanied minors and therefore cannot be returned, he added.
From Barron's ● Aug. 25, 2026
At CERN, atomic nuclei can be accelerated to nearly the speed of light and smashed together.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 23, 2026
The rate of glacier shrinkage has been increasing globally since the 1990s and at a particularly accelerated rate since 2000, according to the European Commission's monitoring body Copernicus.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
Ben Snider and team at Goldman Sachs have just published their latest Hedge Fund Trend Monitor, which shows an important driver in the stock market selloff that accelerated in July.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 21, 2026
The road ahead of them straightened out, Scythe Curie shifted gears, and they accelerated.
From "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman
The reforms will also create a two-speed system for processing asylum requests, in theory accelerating cases deemed urgent.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
"The capabilities of frontier models are rapidly accelerating," the company said.
From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2026
But the discovery that cosmic expansion was accelerating meant that model could no longer stand in its existing form.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 18, 2026
Still, earnings growth for the rest of the market has also been strong and accelerating, they observe, with the median S&P 500 company growing EPS by 14%.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 17, 2026
Livingston also was perplexed about his inability to coax the protons to more than seventy-five accelerating steps, a mysterious constraint on the machine’s effectiveness.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
