microsecond

From micro- +‎ second.

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microsecond (plural microseconds)

2. (metrology) An SI unit of time equal to 10⁻⁶ seconds. Symbol: μs

   Alternative forms: μs (SI symbol), μsec (non-SI symbol), us (non-SI symbol, informal)

   Holonyms: millisecond < centisecond < decisecond < second < decasecond < minute < hectosecond < kilosecond < hour < day < week < megasecond < fortnight < month < year < gigasecond < century < kiloannum, kiloyear, millennium < terasecond < mega-annum, megayear < petasecond < giga-annum, gigayear < exasecond < zettasecond < yottasecond < ronnasecond < quettasecond

   Meronyms: quectosecond < rontosecond < yoctosecond < zeptosecond < attosecond < femtosecond < picosecond < nanosecond

   • 1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 6, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 136:

     He'd be on her ass in a microsecond, revoke her letters testamentary, they'd call her names, proclaim her through all Orange County as a redistributionist and pinko, slip the old man from Warpe, Wistfull, Kubitschek and McMingus in as administrator de bonis non and so much baby for code, constellations, shadow-legatees.

   • 1969, Harold R. Dell, HIGH-DENSITY PERMANENT DATA STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEM‎^[1], US Patent 3638185:

     The data word processor 606 handles the in-flow and out-flow of byte-oriented input/output data and interleaved signals at a rate of, for example, 500 kilobytes per second. Instruction processing rates of four to eight per microsecond are required for such a data flow.

   • 2006 August 8, Peter M Kasson et al., “Ensemble molecular dynamics yields submillisecond kinetics and intermediates of membrane fusion”, in PNAS‎^[2], volume 103, number 32, →DOI, archived from the original on 6 March 2025:

     The hemifused intermediate state dominates on the microsecond time scale, with a decay t_1/2 of 6.3 μs. […] On the submillisecond time scale, long-lived hemifusion intermediates dominate; this population decays over a time scale of several microseconds (t_1/2 = 6.3 μs) to yield fully fused vesicles.

   • 2015, Rup Kumar Kar, “ROS Signaling: Relevance with Site of Production and Metabolism of ROS”, in Dharmendra K. Gupta, José M. Palma, Francisco J. Corpas, editors, Reactive Oxygen Species and Oxidative Damage in Plants Under Stress, Springer, →ISBN, page 117:

     O₂^•− and OH^• are highly unstable (half-life at the level of microseconds and nanoseconds, respectively) and cannot cross membrane, while H₂O₂, though not a free radical but a ROS, is relatively stable (half-life around 1 ms) (Møller et al. 2007) and can cross membranes through aquaporins.

   • 2025 May 23, King Chimera (chimera_4212), X‎^[3]:

     Hxh son all day any week and any hour any minute any second, any millisecond, any microsecond, any nanosecond any picosecond any femtosecond, any attosecond, any zeptosecond, any yoctosecond, any rontosecond, any quectosecond

   • 2025 October 7, baldigaming285, somesillysprunker, “can we all laugh at this guy”, in Reddit‎^[4], archived from the original on 17 February 2026:

     sprunker: "ok ill delay the update by 67 years, 67 months, 67 days, 67 hours, 67 seconds, 67 deciseconds, 67 centiseconds, 67 milliseconds, 67 microseconds, 67 nanoseconds, 67 picoseconds, 67 femtoseconds, 67 attoseconds, 67 zeptoseconds, 67 yoctoseconds, 67 rontoseconds, 67 quectoseconds, and 67... plank ^[sic] time????".