wpm
Americanabbreviation
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.
Pen-and-ink clerks who struggled to top 20 words a minute were displaced by typists who could top 60 wpm, especially if they used new touch-typing techniques pioneered by a Cincinnati stenographer, Elizabeth Longley.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 15, 2025
Foulke and his colleagues noticed that college students preferred recordings that had been sped up by 30 percent, from 175 wpm to 222 wpm.
From Washington Post • Jun. 22, 2016
According to Audible, the audiobook company, the typical book recording is performed at 155 wpm.
From Washington Post • Jun. 22, 2016
Experiments showed that at 300-400 wpm, individual words were still clear enough to understand; except at that rate, many listeners couldn’t keep up with rapid stream of words, likely because their short-term memories were overtaxed.
From Washington Post • Jun. 22, 2016
His tail wagged, about a 200 on the wpm, or wags per minute, meter.
From "The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street" by Karina Yan Glaser
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.
