response time

American  

noun

1. Psychology. the time consumed in making a response.

2. Computers. the time that elapses while waiting for a computer to respond to a command.

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response time British  

noun

1. computing the length of time taken by a system to respond to an instruction

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Etymology

Origin of response time

First recorded in 1955–60

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

response time

I realized that replying to complicated requests or problems in anger or haste was never smart, so I kept his rule to slow my response time down eight hours for future correspondence.

From Slate ● Sep. 27, 2026

For example, "when there's poor internet connection, response time will be very slow".

From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026

Despite the blackout on the missile’s details, the product appears designed to overcome the Pacific “tyranny of distance,” in part by exploiting the speedy hypersonic response time.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026

According to data recently released by the city in a public records request, the average response time for the department for a Priority 2 was more than two hours as recently as March.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2026

And that the same results are obtained each time the experiment is repeated under similar conditions, shows that this recording of the response time is a scientific phenomenon.

From Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose His Life and Speeches by Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose

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